Spin (Songs of Corruption #1)(41)

—I still want to talk to you—

I didn’t expect to hear back, and I didn’t. I shot back downtown to finish the day’s work.

***

Every time my phone dinged and buzzed, I hoped it was Antonio. But it was always Pam with some new meeting or appointment. I started seeing the world through the hopeful window of my device.

“Hey.”

I spun around to find the source of the voice.

Michael stood behind me in costume: Dirty jeans. Grey T-shirt. A filthy apron and hair net. “We got a place from ReVal for the wrap party on Saturday. Some corporate loft they haven’t staged yet.”

“Wow. Nice work. Are we starting filming?”

“Nah, they’re still getting the lights up.”

I stepped deeper into the parking lot. “That getup really works for you.”

Anything would work for him. He was a celebrity waiting to happen.

“Like it?” He pointed to a particularly egregious brown smear. “I had this chocolate streak put on just so people would think it was shit.”

“Bold.”

“That’s my middle name. Speaking of—well, no, not speaking of. This is actually a major non sequitur.”

We walked through the lot, ignored in the busy hustle of the camera crew testing every corner for the right light, adjusting scrims and lamps.

“I like a good non sequitur as much as the next person.”

He stopped and turned toward me. “I heard we lost our post funding.”

“You know Hollywood gossip is cheap.”

“My agent told me.”

“And agent gossip is the cheapest. Seriously, Michael, consider the source. Pilot season’s happening when you’ll be doing scene pickups for Katrina. He can’t like that.”

“You’re not denying it.”

“You assume I know in the first place.”

“Still not denying it. You’re an artist at that, you know.” His smile seemed genuine, but it could have been acting. “Now, Ms. Ip? Not such an artist.”

He took out a pack of cigarettes and poked one out. I was reminded of Antonio Spinelli’s fluid motions, his clacking lighter, the smoke framing his face. Michael was less intense. My observations could have been colored by my sexual indifference. Sometimes, between two people who shared so little heat, a cigarette was just a cigarette.

“I’m glad you brought it up with Katrina first,” I said. “She needs to know if something like this is going around town.”

“I’ve done some of my best work in the past couple of weeks. Pilot season’s not my future. This movie is.”

“I’m glad you—”

“I do feel that way. Let me finish. If this film gets shelved, I’m shelved. I’m home in Park Forest, Illinois, working in the pizza shop on Blackhawk Way. I have no money to put up, but I would, and she knows that.”

“Stop.” When he tried to blow through me again, I held up my hand. “She won’t take money from me.”

“I know.”

“You think you know a little too much.”

“We haven’t even scratched the surface.” He took a scrap of paper from his apron pocket just as Ricky, the new AD, called talent to the set. “This guy funds low-budget, non-union gigs that run out of money.”

I looked at the paper, though I suspected I knew the name already. Scott Mabat, Hollywood loan shark and part-time  p**n ography producer. “This guy’s a career-killer.”

“He made Thomas Brandy who he is.”

“A statistical anomaly. The rest couldn’t pay him back and wound up in a ditch.”

He stepped back toward set, where I also belonged. “I believe in this picture.”

With that, he spun around and trotted inside, leaving behind the implication that I didn’t. As I followed, I counted the days I had left to get Katrina her money.

***

When the set broke, I hopped over to the Spanish house in the hills. The gate was locked, and the driveway was empty. I got out and listened. No banging or hammering. No sledgehammer demolition on an ill-placed wall. Nothing but the screech of crickets.

I got back in the car. Where to, Contessa?

It had been four days. Was the trail getting cold, or was I just getting really crappy at this? I still had no idea where he lived. The car place was probably closed for the day. Where else had I seen him? Frontage. The offices of WDE. A Catholic Charities fundraiser. Katrina’s set downtown, where he’d brought dinner and wine.

Zia.

I tapped my phone a few times and came up with a restaurant in Rancho Palos Verdes. A thirty-minute drive if the freeways had cleared from the spate of violence that had something or nothing at all to do with Antonio.

twenty-six.

ia’s didn’t look authentic. It looked like what authentic was supposed to look like. If you went to Italy, you’d expect every café and restaurant to have a supply of red checked tablecloths, containers of parmesan, and baskets of bread with saucers of butter. Considering the quality of the neighborhood and the sophistication of the residents, the cheesy décor was bound to be a turnoff.

I parked in the little lot and went around to the front, where two tables sat on the sidewalk. At one sat two men in their sixties, hunched over a game of dominoes. The one farthest, with the white moustache and huge belly, glanced at me, nodded, and rolled the dice. The other, in a fedora and open-necked shirt, didn’t acknowledge me. A sense of apprehension came over me. I was stepping into Antonio’s territory. Wasn’t that exactly what he didn’t want?