“Did David tell you that?”
“Beatrice did actually,” I admitted, and there was no need for me to add a last name as both Amelia and I shared the same agent. “I haven’t had the chance to ask David about it yet.”
“I’m sure you’ve been verybusywith David and all.” I could hear the laughter in her voice. “But don’t believe everything Beatrice tells you. The woman is a well-known rumor spreader. So ask him about it.”
“Okay. Any advice on how to politely tell Fred that I don’t want to work with him but I may want him to introduce me to other people in the industry?”
“Oh, just be open and straightforward and adamant in your love and adoration for his extremely exceptional writing,” Amelia said.
“So lie.”
“It’s not lying, just a bit of creative deception and career self-preservation.”
I thanked Amelia for her precise Hollywood insight analysis and hung up. And almost as if he’d known I’d been talking about him, I got another one of those annoying text messages from Fred Appleton that I was going to keep ignoring.
Fred Appleton
I wanted to ask you how everything is at home. I’d hate for you to be uncomfortable.
What the hell did that mean? A regular person would read that and think he was inquiring about my mental wellbeing after being talked about so publicly in the press. But my former showrunner was big on playing mind games—and pranks. He’d once broken into an actor’s house to leave a prosthetic horse head in his bed because he was playing a gangster in the show. And the last season I was there, he’d tampered with the food at craft services, making it so inedible no one touched it. He wanted to see if having a hungry team would make the production run faster. It didn’t.
My paranoid side wanted to believe there was something hidden in his text message. Could he be behind my lack of hot water at home? Because I sure as hell wasn’tcomfortable.
I was still musing about Appleton’s implausible but on-character involvement in the failure of my water heater when I refocused on the big black-and-white picture hanging in one of the hidden halls of the hotel. It captured the tuxedo- and gown-clad attendees to the Academy Awards ceremony of 1939 that had taken place inside those walls. It was because of moments like that, when you suddenly found yourself confronted by so many decades of moviemaking history, that I loved Los Angeles.
The image made me realize I’d been living in Hollywood for so long, I was starting to have problems telling fact from far-fetched fiction. Of course, Fred Appleton wasn’t implying anything about my lack of hot water while he sent me that last text!
···
“What did I miss?” I asked five minutes later when I rejoined the bar.
“Apparently, Fitzsimmons wasn’t stalking Dashing Henry but working for him,” David stated. I rolled my eyes because from that moment on, Marky/Troubelmakr would be known to David simply asFitzsimmons,given that’s the proper way to refer to a source on second reference and beyond. “Remember you found a bunch of emails from Fitzsimmons repeatedly reaching out to Henry? The actor called Fitzsimmons and asked to meet.”
“They met? And what do you mean Marky worked for Henry?”
“They met in person. I think Henry didn’t want a digital trace of the encounter. He had me followed for days by Fitzsimmons,” David explained. “That’s why I thought I had seen him around the neighborhood. It turns out he’s not good at following people and not being seen.”
“Why did Henry have you followed?” I asked David, but then I thought better and turned to the Troubelmakr. “Why did you follow David?!” I was worried and tired—but mostly pissed.
“Is she gonna hit me?” Marky/Troubelmakr asked Gary Firth. He covered his face with his hands. “She’s angry!”
“What? Of course I’m not gonna hit you! But tell me why the hell you were following my partner!” Even if he looked quite harmless now, I’d been terrified when Marky had been chasing me and David. The idea of him following David when he was alone sent a chill down my spine.
“I thought your partner was the blondie who always wears expensive suits,” Marky/Troubelmakr said. I registered only then that he was younger than I’d assumed, barely in his midtwenties. Yet he’d sent menacing emails to David. Had that quasi post-pubescent creep been following me around as well? He had to, if he knew about Victor.
“Can we please leave my personal life out of this! Tell me why you’ve been following David,” I said in frustration.
“Don’t bother,” Gary Firth said, waving a hand. “David and I have triedeverything. I even offered to host Marky at my place if he ever travels to New York. He’s agreed not to bother you guys again, but he doesn’t want to tell us anything else. We should call his lawyer.”
“Has everyone lost their minds?” I said. “Why should we call his lawyer? He’s not even been arrested! Those were fake cops! He’s wearing fake handcuffs! And you’re a fake private investigator who’s offered to help me but has gone too far and invited a possible stalker to your home.”
I leave for five minutes.
“Marky, the offer is off the table. Gary has been nice enough already. He may give you an autograph, but he won’t be taking any fucking selfies with you and he won’t be inviting you to his home!” The Troubelmakr pouted. “And now you’re gonna tell us what exactly you were doing for Dashing Henry, or I’ll get my mother to ban you for life from all the studio lots, premiere red carpets, shooting locations—and Disneyland.”
“Can she do that?” the Troubelmakr asked the two men in the room, horror written on his face.
Of course not.
