Reel Stuff (10 page)

“No movie stars tonight,” I said.

“How much you got, honey?” The blonde moved closer and put her hands on my shoulders. She had to be three or four inches taller that I was, and when she looked down at me and smiled, I could count the stained, crooked teeth.

“I'm sure I don't have enough, ma'am.”

“Ma'am? I'm not your momma, boy. Do you want a little action or not?”

I shook my head, suddenly aware I hadn't worked this shift before. It was a completely different group than I dealt with during the day.

“Too bad. We've had some fun with some of the others on this set.”

“Been a party week,” the smaller brunette burped and did a little bump and grind. “Party.”

“What kind of party?” I asked.

“That trailer over there.” She motioned to one of the leads' trailers. “Why, two nights ago this guy who directs things, he—”

“Directs the show?”

She ran her hands down my chest, and when she started to go further I stepped back. Her forwardness and the boozy breath mixed with sweet perfume was almost nauseating.

“Randy Roberts?”

The short girl with the black skirt looked up at her very tall friend.

“Was it a guy named Randy?”

“Oh, hell,” the blonde started laughing. “There was Randy and Richard and a couple of other guys I can't remember, but I do know that Jason Londell was there in all his splendor.”

“Splendor?” I shuddered.

“Look, geek boy, do you want to party or not?”

I did not. But I wanted information on previous parties.

“You ladies partied with Jason Londell?”

“Partied?” The tall blonde let go a belly laugh. “Hell, we did more than just party. We gave him a real joyride.”

The smaller brunette smiled and nodded. “He was magnificent. Kept saying his wife had left him, and we were the best thing that had happened to him since then.”

“Stacy was doing a reverse cowgirl, and he was shouting out his wife's name. Juliana, Juliana, then he—”

I didn't want to hear any more.

“Wait. Jason Londell said his wife left
him
?”

“He said it over and over.”

“Over and over and over and, then, over,” the brown-haired girl reiterated.

I had this mental image that wasn't pleasant.

“‘The bitch left me. The bitch doesn't understand what she just did. The bitch left me. Juliana left
me
.' And then, the next day, he kills himself. Our little intervention didn't solve his problems. Apparently.”

We'd heard that Londell left Juliana. Not the other way around. Maybe it didn't matter who did what to whom, but then again, maybe it did matter.

“Do you know who Ashley Amber is?”

“Are you kidding? We watch
Deadline Miami
religiously. And Stacy has seen every one of Ashley's movies, haven't you, girl?”

The short girl nodded. “Killer body on that bitch.”

It was an awkward question, but I asked it anyway.

“Was she anywhere around when all this went down? Did she participate?”

“Oh, gawd,” the blonde shrieked. “Would that have been the bomb?”

The answer was apparently “no.” Ashley wasn't with the party, at least during
that
part of the evening.

“Londell told you his wife left him?”

“A guy will tell you anything to get you in the sack.”

I didn't appreciate the comment.

“But once you are in the sack, most guys will level with you.” The blonde with the crooked teeth leered at me.

“Why do you think that is?” I asked.

“They are so thankful that they are getting laid, they will tell you whatever you want to know. They will tell you the truth. How much they are worth. How they really feel about their wife. Once they are in the saddle, you can ask them anything and whatever they answer is pretty much the truth.”

Spoken by a woman who had been there and done that.

“This Randy? He was at the party?”

“He was and he wasn't,” Blondie said.

“Can you explain?”

“He was there. Big shot. ‘I'm directing the show' kind of guy. But when it came to being there, he wasn't. Stacey can vouch for that.”

The brunette gave me a sheepish smile.

“He didn't participate,” she said.

And I realized I was second, third, or fourth string in the hierarchy. I didn't participate because I had no idea this kind of thing was going on. Randy Roberts didn't participate because he couldn't.

“Randy Roberts. Director?” I just wanted to be sure I had it right.

“Yeah, kept talking about our makeup. Too much rouge, eyeliner. Told him to take a flying fuck. Beatch. Man apparently used to be a makeup artist, before he became a big-time director, and he thinks he knows everything about a working girl's face.”

“Makeup artist? That's what he told you?”

“He did.”

Director, former babysitter for an actress, and a makeup artist? The guy took work wherever he could find it.

“Who else was at that party?”

“Oh, jeez,” the blonde's eyes glazed over. “Just five or six guys who'd had too much to drink. We were all pretty tipsy when it was over.”

“How about the young guy, blond, short hair. He was cute. You remember, the one with the black leather bracelet on his wrist? Kept asking me what made me tick,” Stacy the short girl smiled.

“That's when you first showed him your boobs.”

“Who was this guy?” The black leather bracelet. So maybe the camera guy on the walkway was partying with the cast, crew, and hookers. I imagined things like that going on but to actually talk to two guests of honor—

“Some guy. I think he worked the camera.”

“Jerry? Jerry Clemens?” Clemens wasn't that young and he didn't have blond hair. And he didn't wear a leather bracelet. Now I was sure it was the imposter. Our fake camera guy.

“No. Don't remember his name. We were a little distracted, you know?” Reaching out, she touched my face, and I immediately wanted soap and a washcloth.

“Well, you ladies need to move on. We're not supposed to let anyone on the set tonight. Sorry.”

The blonde pouted, in the dim light her painted lips showing signs of cracking. Too much lipstick, too much powder.

“Honey, you'll never know what you're missing.”

“Maybe some other time.”

The two ladies of the evening turned and walked back toward Em's building, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I'd never before been approached by a hooker and hoped it never happened again.

As I watched them retreat, the smaller girl turned.

“Greg. The camera guy with the black leather bracelet was Greg.”

“Greg Handler?” Had to be.

“Could have been. Carry and I nicknamed him Tiny.”

Her laugh lingered as the two of them walked down the sidewalk.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Six o'clock a.m. took forever, but when it arrived, I went up to Em's place. She answered the door in her robe, a vision of sleepiness and mussed-up hair looking very alluring. I told her about the hookers, then escorted her back to her bedroom where she made things all right again.

Finally, head propped up on two fluffed-up pillows, she looked at me and smiled.

“So, Jason Londell got it on with a prostitute his last night on earth.”

“And I was under the impression that Ashley Amber was his true love. She told us that she was the one he spent the last night with.”

“Maybe he made it with her later.”

“Yeah, after he spent the night playing poker with Anders and Randy Roberts.”

I nodded. “I should have been a movie star. Apparently, they get all the action.”

“All the action? You'd give up
this
?” She pointed to herself.

“No. Jason Londell never got
this
.” I gave her a fake smile. “Did he?”

“No,” she teased, “but to be fair, he never asked.”

“Oh, so he
could
have...”

“Londell was supposed to have been with Ashley, right?”

I nodded.

“Londell was supposedly partying with the cast last night and getting it on with a hooker, right?”

I nodded again.

“And Anders told me they'd spent part of the evening reminiscing about the old days when in fact the rumor is they were all playing poker.”

“Em, technically night could go from six p.m. to six a.m. That's a lot of hours to fill. I suppose he could have been three or four places.”

She smiled. “With all that activity and no rest, maybe he fell asleep up on that scaffolding.” She studied me for a second. “You had Ashley in your trailer when she asked you to take the case, right?”

“Showed up on the doorstep and she was very upset.”

“Skip, did Ashley really think that Londell was going to marry her?”

“I was pretty sure that she was sincere when she hired us.”

“We need to know. And we need to establish a motive for his murder. We're not even close to an answer at this point.”

My cell phone went off, and I checked the number. James.

“Skip, you clock out?”

“Yeah. I'm with Em. You?”

“Getting ready to report for duty. I got a little information you might be interested in, pard.”

“Em and I were just saying that we don't have much information at all. Anything at this point would be welcome.”

“We talked insurance, remember?”

We had.

“Anyway, there was a huge policy on Londell taken out by Anders's production company.”

“James, we knew that. Roberts told me just before Londell jumped. He said that Anders was pissed about paying for the extra insurance.”

“CA Productions were paying in the neighborhood of forty-eight thousand dollars a day on his coverage. Do you believe that? Forty-eight thousand dollars a day.”

“But it worked out, James. The production company is being compensated. By several million dollars.”

“Do you know how much several is?”

I didn't.

“Six million if it disrupts the show. Apparently, they've got to shoot some new footage since there is stuff he didn't finish. Either use a look-alike or change the plot to work around his death.”

So, the show had been disrupted, and Anders's production company was getting paid six million bucks.

“Come on, James. They didn't actually expect Jason Londell to get killed. There may have been a nice payoff, but I've got to believe that Anders wishes his friend was still alive.”

“Next item,” James continued. “Juliana Londell had to sign a prenup.”

“That's a bad thing?”

“She's still married to Londell and inherits whatever he had. Except for one condition.”

“What's that?”

“That she was faithful to him.”

So Londell could hang out with hard-core hookers, but the wife back home had to toe the line.

“Was she?”

“Ashley says that's the angle we should look into. She thinks Juliana might have fooled around on Londell.”

It was a starting point.

“You won't believe me when I tell you how much this guy had, Skip.”

“Tell me.”

“Guy was mid-thirties, right? Ten years older than we are?”

“How much was his estate worth, James?”

“Around seventy-five million, give or take a few hundred thousand. Do you believe that?”

I let out a breath. Should have been a movie star. How does someone accumulate that kind of money?

“You're sure about that? That's a lot of change.”

“So, let's say there's a chance she did fool around, and that fortune is in jeopardy.” James was speculating.

“I know your question,” I said. “Did she cover the odds with an insurance policy of her own?”

“I think one of us flies out there and checks it out. To see if Juliana was making plans for life after Jason Londell.”

“He'd still have to approve it, wouldn't he? Londell would have to sign off on the bottom line. You can't just take out a huge policy on someone without them knowing about it. That would almost be a license to kill.”

“Let's say I take out a policy on you, Skip, for—”

“Yeah, James, you could afford about a thirty-six dollar policy.”

“Well, we need to know.”

“Ashley is still up for all expenses?”

“She is.”

“You talked to her recently?”

“A minute ago, pard.”

“She's there? Now?”

He took a deep breath, then in a much softer voice he said, “She spent the night, amigo.”

“What?”

“I wasn't going to say anything, but—”

“What?”

“Skip, settle down.”

“You are a piece of work, James. Honest to God, a frigging piece of work.”

“Frustrated, lonely, we had a couple of drinks and next thing you know—”