The man, sixth sense kicking in perhaps, or just not liking the smile Pete was giving him, took a step backward. His raised arms no longer seemed comical. “Okay, look. I’m sorry. I think … look, okay, I get it. You’re pissed. I’ve ….” the man sighed, dropped his arms, his chin. “I’ll come clean. I’ve been lying. You got me. I came up here on purpose.”
Pete didn’t reply. He was thinking of how he was going to hurt the man. The different ways he was going to hurt him. It would have made Noemi sick, he knew. Would have frightened Gina, his little six-year-old princess. Frightened her to see Daddy thinking such dark thoughts. But Pete put his family out of his mind. He forced them out, along with their apartment, the warm bed he shared with his wife, their future. He was the old Pete now. The one from the streets. And he was ready.
The man took another half-step back. “Look, I’m being straight. Just… please, just listen. Okay? Dude? Okay?”
Pete nodded. He didn’t give a shit anymore. “Yeah, okay,” he said, and watched the man’s hands.
“So, I’m … how to put this. This is Abaddon, right? The movie? The one with Holly Pages in it? She’s the star, right? And you guys are filming up here, if the permit is correct, for the next couple nights. Am I right? You don’t have to say yes or no, I mean, I know … okay, so that’s why I’m here. Dude. Sir. I’m here because I’m a big ….” He laughed. A tinny, weak laugh. “I’m a big fan of Holly Pages, man. And I’d do just about anything for her. I mean … that sounds psycho ….
I’d do anything to, you know, see her. Get something of hers. You know? Like … a token. A selfie or some dumb shit like that, you know what I mean?”
The stranger trailed off, and Pete felt some of the darkness slip away. He didn’t like the feeling. It was one thing to be ready and another thing to be relaxed. But that state between … not a good place to be. He felt himself tiring and felt more than a little shame. Old regret. He fought it, not ready to let his guard down completely. Not yet. He may be just some nut, but he might also be dangerous. Pete had no idea what the guy thought he would find. There wasn’t shit here. The crew left hours ago, wouldn’t be back until morning. The trailers were locked tight. So what did he want?
“Okay,” Pete said. “I feel you, but it don’t change nothing. You gotta go. Besides, no one’s here, dude. Ms. Pages won’t be back until they’re filming tomorrow, so maybe you come back and bug the other guards then, okay?”
The man smiled again, like he’d won his point, although Pete couldn’t understand how he’d think that in a million years. “I don’t want to come back,” the stranger said. “I want to talk to you. You’re the guy I want to deal with.”
Pete heard himself chuckling. Fucking guy is loco, man. “We ain’t making no deal. Now get the fuck outta here. Last time I’m telling you.”
The man smiled even more broadly, reached into the pocket of his camo pants and pulled out a thick fold of bills. Pete’s eyes tracked the money like a cat eyeballing a slow-moving mouse.
“I’ve got two hundred dollars here. Cash. It’s yours, if you’ll just hear me out and do one little thing for me.”
Pete found himself staring at the money. Debtors were flying through his head. Utility bills. Groceries. The failing brakes on the Honda. His edge was slipping…
He nodded. “Okay, dude. Let me hear it.”
2
PETE WONDERED IF IT WAS a mistake. Debated with himself whether he’d let something crucial slip through his fingers. Some piece of morality. A shingle of ethics that had been rattling the screw loose on his newly formed suit of armor, the one he’d worn as a disguise since he’d met Noemi, since he’d become a father to an amazing little girl. As he approached the trailer, he felt the slight bulge of folded paper against his leg, the reassuring weight of cash, and pushed the debate aside.
Each trailer had a hide-a-key. Even though he wasn’t supposed to know this information, all the guards did anyway. Just in case. The transpo guys were primarily day-players, and the captain didn’t want to rely on any one guy holding the keys for the trailers, and the captain also didn’t want to rely on being first-in every morning. Shit happened, after all. So they always kept a hide-a-key under the hitch of each trailer, tucked into a small magnetic black box, to use if needed.
Pete found the magnetic box easily, slipped out the key, and—without further internal debate—went to the door, opened it, stepped inside.
It was dark as a lake bottom. The frail light from the night barely scraping the thick heavy black of the trailer’s interior heart. Pete pulled out his phone, tapped open the built-in flashlight, and looked around.
“Just find me something … anything. A Kleenex. A hairbrush. Something, you know, she won’t miss. That way you won’t get in trouble, see? Easy money, man.”
That’s what had finally swayed Pete. If the guy had wanted a piece of wardrobe, or a script or something that would be missed, the deal was off. All that stuff was itemized. Catalogued. Even a missing toothbrush could raise questions. These movie stars, they had come by their success on dubious, hard-fought paths, and they protected what was theirs with a ferocious intensity. Pete had seen stars get in their cars and drive away because some poor P.A. had gotten the wrong kind of organic juice from the Whole Foods. Dumb shit could set them off. They were babies, yeah, but they were also the reason everyone was working, so folks put up with it. You piss off a star, you lose your livelihood, meek as it might be. After a while, stars, like other royalty, get used to being treated with kid gloves, and eventually they become kids. It’s almost inevitable. Holly Pages was no different. A young, gorgeous starlet who was bringing down five million a film plus backend with an army of sycophants waiting with bated breath to see her next starring role—point in case the psycho who’d given him the dough.
Pete saw some clothes laid out on a small couch in the small living area. A mug and an unwashed bowl on a table in the kitchenette. Tea bags and snack bars on the counter. He moved to the bedroom, light pushing the dark away ahead of him. The bed appeared unused, but there was a full bar set up on the nightstand. Vodka, gin, whiskey. The good stuff. An ice bucket. Pete was pretty sure if he opened the fridge he’d find a serious line-up of tonics, sodas, and other mixers. Yeah, Holly was a drinker. Everyone knew it. All the tabloids loved their shots of Holly at a New York club, half-blitzed and more than half naked. One famous image had almost ruined her career a couple years back. Her in an alley in downtown Los Angeles, puking next to a dumpster while some creepy guy behind her lifted her skirt over her ass and did what creepy guys do … while she was puking. As close to a crash-and-burn moment as you could get for a public figure. But she apologized all over social media, played the victim. Said the guy had slipped something in her drink, that she was entering rehab, that she’d learned a lot about life and trust and blah blah blah. Whatever the hell else her publicity team and her band of merry lawyers had drummed up to take the attention off Holly being a slut and a lush and a mess and put the spotlight on the creepy slob who ended up leaving the country after rumors of legal charges surfaced. Of course, everyone in the biz knew Holly had paid the asshole to take off for a few years. Rumor had it he was living in her vacation house somewhere in France and enjoying the good life. And rehab? Please. Holly Pages was back filming another big movie in three months, and the world had moved on and mostly forgotten. There were thousands of new images every day to distract the public—a squalling nest of open-mouthed baby birds with a collective attention disorder—to whom even the worst things in the world rarely had a lifespan of more than a few days.
The bedroom a bust, Pete moved back to the kitchen. He put his light on the mug again … then saw it. A smear of crimson on white.
Lipstick.
He thought it through quickly. A generic mug? No way that would be missed. She would assume—like all rich people did—that some faceless help had come in and tidied up her mess, washed the mug and put it away.
Pete set down the light and did just that. He rinsed the plate and put it in the cupboard, brushed any crumbs off the table, stuck a balled-up napkin in his pocket. Then he took the lipstick-smudged mug, a pristine Holly Pages bottom-lip imprint stuck on its edge like a stamp.
Pete hurried out, locked up the trailer, replaced the key, and walked to the edge of the parking lot where the guy in the white hoodie had been told to wait. Pete was relieved to see him standing there, hands in his pockets, feet stepping one to the other in nervous impatience or cold or sexual frustration. Pete didn’t know, didn’t care.
He showed the mug to the man and saw his eyes light up beneath the glasses.
“I even left some of the tea at the bottom,” Pete announced proudly. “Probably got some of her saliva in there.”
The guy reached for the mug as Pete pulled it back, watched the creep’s face crumple in confusion. The man’s eyes went from the mug, then to Pete, like a dog who’d been shown a piece of meat only to have it held high, out of reach. You be a good dog, Pete thought, and this might work out for both of us.
“This is way better than a snotty Kleenex. You know it.”
The man studied Pete’s eyes a moment, then understanding dawned. “How much?” he said.
“How much you got?”
The man stuck his hand into a back pocket, pulled out a wallet. Opened it, looked inside. “I got another hundred.”
Pete pretended to think about it, then nodded. “Done.”
The stranger gave Pete five twenties, and Pete handed him the mug. “What’s your name?”
The man held the mug like an ancient artifact, mumbled his response while his eyes caressed the smear of lipstick. “Jimmy.”
