Hot Shot (7 page)

I typed in “Felina Lopez” and “Vernon Ash.” The hits started piling up on my screen in a bright green scroll—first a dozen, then two, then more.

Two hits down, I found a long story that summarized the Ash case. The story had broken during a particularly slow, hot summer, and the combination of Hollywood, hookers, drug dealing, and melodramatic testimony had captivated the L.A. media until fall.

Ash had been a slickie—not a streetcorner crack peddler, but a guy who had serviced some big names in the movie, television, and music industries. A whippet-thin pretty boy, Ash had a penchant for Italian suits, celebrity parties, and flashy girlfriends like Felina Lopez. He was too tempting a target for the then-D.A., whose tenure had been marred by a series of high-profile courtroom losses. By the time
voir dire
started, there was a semipermanent media camp outside the Santa Monica courthouse.

In Los Angeles, trials are run like Hollywood productions. By the third week,
People v. Ash
was shaping up as a flop. Interest was waning. Then Felina took the stand.

Just as Fawn Hall perked up the Iran-contra hearings, Felina got the Ash case back on top of the evening news. The press zeroed in on the beautiful dark blonde with the long legs, and the very first question—“Have you ever been a prostitute?”—was the clincher. Ash would probably have been sent away even without her testimony, but Felina's information, provided under immunity, was the clincher.

When it was over, Felina went to Mexico, Ash got a few years in a low-security prison with satellite TV, and the D.A. won reelection. A happy ending for everyone.

*   *   *

Claudia came home at six to watch. At 6:25, we popped a tape in the VCR and tuned in the last of the local news, just in time to catch a cutesy human-interest story about a German shepherd that was nursing a litter of motherless piglets. The weather goofball made a stupid joke, everyone laughed, and they segued into the familiar theme song of
Hollywood Today!

Mary Lasater, the host, was sitting behind her Plexiglas desk with a smile that looked wheatpasted on her face. Mary had a few miles on her odometer, but she was still as slappably perky as ever. The music ended and the opening graphic appeared behind her: a sexy photo of a young Felina. Bright red lettering spelled out the title
BUTCHERED BEAUTY
.

“Oh, brother,” said Claudia.

“Several years ago, Felina Lopez was living the high life,” said Mary Lasater. “As a high-priced Hollywood call girl, she hobnobbed with the rich and famous. Four years ago, she left Tinseltown after turning state's evidence on Vernon Ash, the drug dealer to the stars, and moved to Mexico to begin a new life. That life came to a tragic end yesterday when Felina Lopez was found murdered in her beach mansion. For the story, we go to Ensenada, Mexico, and Frank Grassley.”

Grassley was walking on the beach in a polo shirt. He wore a grim look on his face and a pair of four-hundred-dollar leather espadrilles on his feet.

“That's right, Mary. Felina Lopez lived in the house you see behind me. Mexican police are calling her murder a case of robbery gone wrong, but
Hollywood Today!
has learned of another possible motive. Recently, Felina Lopez had signed a contract to write the story of her life—a book that was going to detonate like a bomb in Hollywood.”

“Shit,” I mumbled.

The image switched to a biographical montage underscored with Donna Summer's “Bad Girls.” Lots of file footage from Hollywood parties past, a shot of Felina leaving the L.A. county courthouse during the Ash trial, and finally—sad music swelling—grainy video of the Mexican cops removing the body bag from Felina's house.

Back to Frank Grassley, who was now in suit and tie, sitting in a busy newsroom. It was a lie; the real
Hollywood Today!
“newsroom” looked like a basement where they'd conduct telephone scams. In reality, Grassley was sitting in front of a blue screen with footage of a phony newsroom superimposed behind him. But it sure looked real. “A robbery gone wrong?” he repeated. “Or … something more sinister?

“
Hollywood Today!
has learned exclusively that Felina Lopez was getting ready to publish a memoir of her experiences in Tinseltown. And that the centerpiece of this book was going to be her relationship with the late Dick Mann.” An ominous music sting over a picture of Dick and Betty Bradford Mann at the Emmys. “Felina Lopez and Dick Mann were lovers, according to one woman who knew them both—a woman who also worked as a call girl. We've disguised her identity here.”

No duh. The woman on the screen wore a wig, sunglasses, and was photographed entirely in shadow. A caption read “
MISSY
”:
FORMER HOLLYWOOD PROSTITUTE
.

“Felina and Dick were dating for almost a year,” said the woman. Her voice had been electronically altered. She sounded like she'd been sucking helium underwater.

“How did they meet?” Grassley asked from offscreen. From the odd break between the statement and the question, I guessed that the interview had actually been done by some anonymous producer with Grassley dubbing in his questions later. Just another bit of fudging with the facts.

“He started as a client of the agency where we both worked.”

“And you're telling me that their relationship developed from a prostitute and her client to something more.”

“I always had that impression. Felina talked about him all the time.”

“But he was married. To Betty Bradford Mann.” A quick cutaway to a telephoto shot of the actress leaving her husband's funeral.

“He was married. Felina knew it. We all did.”

Frank put on a stern face. “Missy—do you think Felina Lopez's tragic death might have something to do with this book she was planning to write?”

“I don't know.”

Back to Via del Paraiso, where Frank Grassley stood on the beach like a Ken doll. “There you have it, Mary. We tried to reach Betty Bradford Mann for comment, but she was unavailable. We also tried to reach this man—”

“Kieran!” yelped Claudia.

It was a picture of me.

Some freelance video photographer—
videorazzi
was the word—had caught me standing in front of a buffet table. They say the camera puts on fifteen pounds, but here it looked more like thirty. In the footage, I was gnawing on a spring roll like a mook.

“This is Kieran O'Connor, a former entertainment columnist who was ghostwriting the project with Felina Lopez. We tried all day to contact Mr. O'Connor, but, Mary…” Frank took a pause that was not only pregnant but ready to deliver. “He couldn't be located.”

Mary Lasater sucked in the skin below her cheek implants. “I hope he's okay.”

“We all do,” said Frank Grassley, “and we'll keep trying to locate him. In the meantime, we'll have Part Two of our exclusive interview with Missy tomorrow.”

I aimed the remote like a gun and zapped the TV. The image died.

“Kieran, they made it sound like you'd gotten kidnapped or gone into hiding!”

“It's just something Frank Grassley would pull. I wouldn't return his call and he's not smart enough to find me, so he gets even by making it sound like a case for the FBI.”

Claudia sighed. “So you think the book is off?”

“I don't know, Claude. I just don't know.”

Claudia went back to the shop about eight and I did a couple loads of clothes. No matter how little or how much you bring on a trip, all your clothes come back dirty. After a long, not particularly relaxing bath, all I could find to wear was a T-shirt and a pair of Halloween boxers patterned with pumpkins.

I poured myself a glass of wine and laid down on the bed to read the transcripts, listening to the soft drizzle on the roof. Before long, I had dozed off.

The phone woke me.

My head jerked up from the drool-spotted pillow. Eleven o'clock. I heard the machine pick up, and then a dial tone. Whoever was calling had hung up.

I laid down again, uneasy. Claudia would have left a message. My guess was Frank Grassley.

Twice more during the night the phone rang, but I didn't get up to answer it. The second time was at one-fifteen, and Claudia still wasn't home.

5

“K
IERNAN
O'C
ONNOR
?”

The woman on Claudia's stoop couldn't have been more than twenty-three, with mink-black hair and expensive department store makeup all over her pretty face.

“Are you Kiernan?”

“Kieran,” I corrected her reflexively, leaning against the door frame. It wasn't even eight o'clock, and I'd been awake all of forty-five seconds.

“Kieran. I'm sorry. I'm Shelly Nguyen.” She slipped me a business card that read
SHELLY NGUYEN
•
SEGMENT PRODUCER
•
HEADLINE JOURNAL
. Under it was a mini-directory of contact information: office, home, mobile, fax, E-mail. This was a woman who couldn't afford to be out of touch for a single minute. “I hope I didn't wake you up.”

“'S okay. I was just sleeping.”

“Right. Hey, you're funny. I was just working on a story? About the Felina Lopez case? And I'd love to interview you.”

“When?” I was still dopey.

“Now.” She pointed down at the curb, where a black stretch limousine was waiting.

Suddenly it all made sense. This was a standard maneuver that the tabloid-TV shows used when they were trying to get an interview out of a noncelebrity: show up at the house with a shiny black limo and treat 'em like a star.

“You could have skipped the car,” I said. “I'm not a dismissed juror. Or the sole survivor of an air disaster.”

“I know,” said Shelly Nguyen. “You're a writer, and a good one. Of course, we'd want to pay you for your time and insights.” She handed me an envelope. I opened it.

Inside was a bank draft made payable to Kiernan O'Connor.

“Okay,” I said after a brief pause. “I'll do it. On the condition that you answer me one thing.”

“What?”

“How did you find me?”

Shelly Nguyen smiled. “We have our ways.”

“I know. I'm a reporter, too. But how'd you get the address where I was staying?”

Her smile flickered. “I don't know. I didn't get it myself. My assistant did.”

“Tell me. I don't care. I'm just curious.”

“It could have been the phone book, or voter registration rolls.”

“Nope. My place was destroyed during the earthquake. And this isn't my permanent residence.”

“Maybe the DMV.”

“No,” I said. “The Rebecca Schaeffer law.”

“Hmm?” Her head looked up from her clipboard.

“Not the DMV. You might be too young to remember, but a few years ago there was a young actress who got murdered. The guy got her address from the DMV. They passed a law in the California legislature, and now you can't get home addresses from the DMV. Legally, at least.”

Something in the air between us shifted. Shelly Nguyen had the business suit and the cashier's check, but it was me, in my T-shirt and Halloween boxers, who had control of the situation.

“So come on, Shelly,” I said. “Just tell me and I'll get dressed and go with you.”

Shelly rolled her eyes. She took a piece of paper from her clipboard and handed it to me.

It was a Xerox of my last pay stub from the newspaper, which had Claudia's address printed right under the pay-to line.

Someone at my own paper had ratted me out. For their own
Headline Journal
bank draft, no doubt.

“Well, Shelly, I guess that makes us both liars.”

“Huh?” She was still smiling.

I smiled back and handed her the bank draft. “You and
Headline Journal
can go fuck yourselves.”

And then I slammed the door in Shelly Nguyen's face.

*   *   *

“They think I know something!” I was crouched on the living room floor, my back to the wall.

“Get out of there. Go stay somewhere else.”

“You're not listening! I can't even go outside to get the paper, Jocelyn!”

“Calm down. Try to look at the positive side. The tabloids are saying that Felina got murdered over what she intended to write. And Danziger's decided to go ahead with the book.”

“Of course he has! Everyone in this city wants the story!”

“Calm down, Kieran, and listen.” Jocelyn had on her soothing voice, the aural equivalent of honey and Prozac. “There won't be any extra money up front. He does have a signed contract, but you should do very well on the back end. But you have to work fast.”

“How can I work like this? I'm sitting on the floor right now because they're shooting through my—”

“Shooting?”

“Not with an Uzi. With a six-hundred-millimeter lens!”

I crawled to the window and peeked out the blind. Sometime during the morning, my address had gotten out. Down on Fourteenth Street, three news vans were parked outside, their satellite dishes and phallic antennas outlined against the trees. Crews were sitting placidly on the curbs, like birds in a Hitchcock movie. One of the neighbors must have called the cops, because there was a Santa Monica police cruiser down there, too, making sure the news crews stayed on public property. I didn't have much time before one of the crews would find a neighbor who would gladly take a hundred-dollar bill in exchange for letting the stalkerazzi into their living room to point a video camera at my window.

Claudia's call-waiting clicked in. “Ignore that, Kieran. Now listen. Get out of there any way you can, Peaches. Get a hotel room or go stay with a friend. As soon as you're safe, call me and let me know where you are.”

The phone started ringing again the second I broke the connection.