Box Office Poison (Linnet Ellery) (6 page)

“Why are you sounding like the prudish school teacher in a Merchant Ivory movie?” I was starting to get mad. “Are you saying my behavior wasn’t professional? In what way? What did I do?”

“You allowed him to take liberties with you!”

“What?” Shock had my voice spiraling into dolphin sonic mode. I regained control and decided to turn it into a joke. “Wow, rethinking that gay thing. Did you ever actually go out with a girl before you died? He was flirting, and he didn’t mean a bit of it.”

“I’m not joking. You were all over him.”

“And I was joking, and so was he. I think you should leave now.” I drew myself up to my full height and tried to look down my nose at him. It wasn’t entirely successful since he was six feet tall.

David did start for the door, but as he left he added, “I want you to keep an appropriate distance from Mr. Montolbano.”

The door closed behind him. I stared at the blank expanse of wood, emitted an enraged squeak, snatched a pillow off the rumpled bed, and threw it at the door. I then resolved to spend as much time as possible with Jeffery Montolbano.

4

Since I was still on New York time I woke up at 4:20 a.m. Lying perfectly still, and squeezing my eyes shut did not return me to dreamland. After fifteen minutes I gave up and got up. Since I had a lot of time before the car arrived I hied myself down to the health club and did a hard workout on the stationary bike and the balance ball. I can never remember if I have fast or slow twitch muscles, but the result was that I bulk up quickly. Which is why I don’t run or use the elliptical machines. The muscles in my calves get huge, and my handmade König dressage riding boots don’t fit. And since they cost twelve hundred dollars and take several months between order and delivery, I wasn’t about to run the risk.

Thinking about my boots had me thinking about the horse I rode back in New York. Vento was a sparkling white, young Lusitano stallion. I had done legal work for his owner, and in addition to paying my fee he loaned me his horse to ride. Jolyon Bryce had been crippled in a car accident and couldn’t ride any longer, but wasn’t willing to part with his horse. I could see why: Vento was great. And now I was going to be away from him for weeks and possibly months on end. It made me sad thinking about it, and I resolved to look for a stable. Maybe there was someplace I could rent a horse to ride in this vast megalopolis.

The sun was coming up when I returned, panting and sweaty, to my room, and the clouds seemed to be breaking up. I took a hot bath, did my hair, put on my makeup and picked an appropriate powerful professional woman outfit—black pencil skirt, deep purple blouse, and high black heels. After checking through my briefcase to make sure I had everything I needed, I headed down to the restaurant for breakfast.

Despite the wide window the room felt dark because of the carpet and paisley upholstery. I noticed one end had been screened off, granting privacy to the vampires and comfort to the humans. I caught the faintest whiff of blood. Somebody had been feeding. I wondered if it had been David?

An attentive waiter seated me and flipped the napkin across my lap with practiced ease within seconds of my arriving. I studied the menu. There was the Polo Lounge Famous French Toast, made with sun-dried cranberry bread, banana cream, and sugar-toasted pecans. (
Eight billion calories!
) There was the So-Cal omelette made with avocado, chorizo, cheese, cilantro, and tomato (
Bleh!)
There was a Japanese breakfast listed, which told me a lot about high-end hotels in Los Angeles. I decided I needed protein to face the day, so I went with the American breakfast with a side of bacon.

I had a couple of text messages. One was from Caroline, a friend and fellow associate in the New York office. She reported that Gadzooks, John’s cat that I’d adopted, had handled the move to her apartment with an aplomb rarely seen in felines. The other was from Cecelia, another associate who was known for her sharp mind and smutty mouth.
Have you met Montolbano? How hot is he?
Smiling I texted back.
Yes, and very.

My meal arrived. I ate, and read through my bookmarked, online newspapers. I had added the
LA Times
to the mix when I knew I was getting pulled into this case. The headline was about the president’s decision to commit troops in a stan I’d never heard of. The next largest headline concerned Kerrinan’s arrest on murder charges. Apparently the human authorities had gotten him back out of Fey.

There were photos from the Beverly Hills police station, a sort of Disneyesque vision of a white Spanish mission, and there were a lot of angry people gathered on either side of the steps holding up signs. The picture quality wasn’t good enough to read most of them, but the one I could make out read,
MARRIAGE IS BETWEEN TWO HUMANS
.

After I finished I went back to my room to brush my teeth and take one final look through the legal papers, and then I headed down to the lobby to wait for Kobe. I was pleased to see that David hadn’t arrived yet. Having been reamed out for not behaving in a professional manner, I felt that being ready before him was a small victory.

He showed up a few minutes later looking flush and plump. Yep, he’d stoked up on blood. He held his briefcase in one hand and a broadbrimmed Panama hat in the other. Not a minute later Kobe came in the front door. David put on his hat, and we headed to the car.

The rush hour traffic was intense, but we stayed on city streets and arrived at the IMG forty-five minutes before the arbitration was set to begin.

*   *   *

Junie took us in hand the minute we entered. “Coffee? Blood?” she asked.

“Coffee,” I said, and David waved her off.

“I’ve dined.”

It was an interesting word choice. The older vampires of my acquaintance, like my foster liege Meredith Bainbridge and Shade, said
fed
. The younger ones tended to say
eaten
or
dined
. I suppose it did make the human hosts sound less like cattle when you phrased it that way. It was also evidence of how even the most conservative and hidebound society can change, albeit slowly.

Junie led us to the other end of the office and threw open silver-chased double doors to reveal a gigantic conference room with heavily treated glass that made the sunlight look like it was being filtered through layers of seawater. Pizer was waiting for us, wearing a suit of coppery brown.

He gave me a grin that exposed his fangs. “You’re in the news.”

David made a face. “I’m not surprised. There must be thousands of other businesses in this city, but people only seem to care about the damn movie business.” A new thought intruded, and he gave Pizer a thunderous frown. “I sincerely hope no one in this office leaked. We can’t function if the parties don’t have confidence in our discretion and impartiality.”

Pizer, still smiling, waited for David to finish his rather pompous speech, then he said, “Oh,
you’re
not in the news.
She
is.”

“What?” I pulled my voice back down. “Me? Why?”

A newspaper appeared from behind Pizer’s back. There was a big photo spread of me on Montolbano’s arm entering Ketchup. It was an improvement over the last time I’d been the picture above the fold. Then I’d been flashing my breast in the
New York Post
and leaving the scene of a grisly murder.

The headline screamed: “Illegal Affair?” I scanned the opening lines of the story: “There have been rumors of problems between Kate Billingham and Jeff Montolbano. Now there may be fire to add to that smoke. Last night Montolbano was seen at one of LA’s hot spots with a beautiful mystery woman who turned out to be Linnet Ellery, superstar lawyer at Ishmael, McGillary and Gold.”

I liked the beautiful part. Usually I got described as cute. I even kind of liked the mystery part, but I didn’t like getting cast in the role of home wrecker. “No stranger to controversy, Ellery was associated with a series of grisly murders…” Before I could read further David snatched the paper out of my hands.

“Oh, dear God.” The words emerged like a groan. “Just what we need. Linnet, how do you manage to end up in these … these … situations?”

“Me? How is this my fault? You’re the one who agreed to have dinner with Montolbano. We could have done room service in your cabana.”

Pizer took back the paper. I snatched at it, but they were passing it well over my head. I stepped back, fuming.

Pizer shrugged. “I don’t see the problem. More ink for IMG is never a bad thing.”

The paper went back to David.

“And that is precisely the problem, Hank … that you don’t see a problem. I think you’ve been in this environment for too long.”

I watched the newsprint float by as it went back to Pizer.

“The reason I’m on the West Coast is because I’m not a fossil,” Pizer replied.

“The senior partners are not going to like having an associate involved in a media circus, and it creates the appearance of bias.”

Especially this associate,
I thought. I comforted myself that this time nobody had died.

Pizer wasn’t backing down. “If they don’t want press, then they shouldn’t have opened an office in Los Angeles and taken on a high-profile industry case.” I thought Pizer had a point, and I nodded in agreement. That had David rounding on me.

“Linnet, you need to stay in the background. Okay?”

“I just went out to dinner,” I said. “Short of wearing a burqua or never leaving my room, I’m not sure what more I can do.”

“Well, just…” David looked frustrated. “Just let me take point in this opening session.”

“Fine,” I snapped.

“And don’t talk to Montolbano. Now, could we please get back to the case,” David said, and he sounded really exasperated.

Pizer was still grinning. Clearly he loved to tweak David. “Sure. I assumed you want to start with a general meeting, so I had all the parties come in.”

David nodded. “Good, yes, excellent.”

“Do you want them brought in one at a time or in a big scrum?” I asked.

David considered, then said, “Bring them all in together. How they interact with each other should be interesting, and it may help us start to get a fix on these people.”

“Remember, they are actors,” Pizer warned. “They’ll show you what they think you want to see.”

The idea that a bunch of actors could fool him had David assuming the full-on vampire. “They can try,” he said. “I’ve had some experience with human subterfuge.”

Pizer shook his head, but said nothing. He went away to summon the various parties. While he was gone, assistants hurried in with coffee, tea, soft drinks, and a platter of donuts. Yellow legal pads and pens were arranged on the big oval table.

“Can you be charmed, bedazzled, whatever you want to call it by the Álfar?” I asked. “My foster father warned me about them, but I thought that had to do more with my being female.”

“You’d be correct. Magic or whatever the Álfar use isn’t effective against vampires. It seems to only work on humans and other Álfar.”

“But you were human once,” I argued.

“But we’re not any longer,” came the short answer. It did rather say it all.

Jeff Montolbano ambled in and gave me one of the famous lopsided smiles that had devastated audiences for ten years. He was dressed casually in khaki slacks, a polo shirt, and a sports jacket.

I sidled over to him. “Well, you fed the beast, but I really don’t appreciate being made a prop.”

He looked contrite. “That really wasn’t my intention. I thought they’d be more interested in your colleague.”

“Bullshit,” I said. “And are you and your wife really having marital difficulties?”

“No,” he said. “We’re just trying to get some ink. This weekend you’ll hear about her being seen with Mark Wiley on the set of her movie in Italy.”

“Under the theory that there’s no such thing as bad publicity?” It came out more acerbic than I’d intended.

“That’d be it.”

We had to break it off because people began entering the room. Up until now these people had just been names in the documents, so I was interested to meet them.

The human actors were represented by Sheila LeBlanc. She was midfifties, fit and tan, with flint gray eyes, too black hair, and designer glasses that sported bling and harkened back to the batwings of the 1950s. I recognized her because every time there was a high-profile case in California she ended up on CNN or some other cable station, either representing some side in the issue or commenting on the case.

The client of record on the human side was Missy (short for Melissa) Able. She was on the shady side of forty; her eyes seemed odd, and then I realized part of her face wasn’t moving. The wonders of Botox. She didn’t look much like the younger ditzy sister she had played on a twenty-year-old sitcom that I had caught in reruns on
Nick at Night
during my college years. All the Botox in the world couldn’t hide the downturned mouth and angry expression. Especially when she looked over at Jeff.

Even if there were no Álfar, I’m betting you wouldn’t be getting parts
, I thought, then tried to forget I’d ever had the nasty little thought because we were the arbitrators and we were supposed to be impartial.

Representing the studios and networks was an enormously fat man with luxuriant light gray hair that set a sharp contrast with his black skin, a lazy smile, and a southern accent that poured honey over you. This was Gordon McPhee, and when he enfolded my hand in his own pillow-soft hand I took note of an antique signet ring and the suit vest crossed with an elaborate watch chain and fob. I looked up and meet his basset hound eyes, and caught the sharp glint of calculation beneath the sleepy demeanor.
Yeah, cunning as a fox,
I thought.
He’s the one to watch.

His clients were a gaggle of sharp men in expensive suits, the heads of various studios and networks, and two women. One was young and self-effacing, Valerie Frank, who was the newly appointed head of Paramount Pictures, and the other woman made Sheila LeBlanc look like Mother Theresa. Ginjer Balkin was the head of the NBC network and all its cable subsidiaries. She was sharp-featured, with perfectly coiffed, highlighted hair, super-high-heeled Christian Louboutin shoes, a pencil skirt, and an inhuman coldness in her eyes that made me wonder if she was a vampire even though I knew that to be impossible.