“Listen up,” Max Slaughter ordered from his position at the head of the table. Actually, it was a round table, following the example set by the planners of international sit-downs seeking to avoid the problem of choosing one attendant poobah over the others to sit at the head (or conversely, the foot). But television rehearsals are not known for their diplomacy, and anywhere the portly producer of the newly rechristened The Midnight Show chose to deposit his pear-shaped rear end automatically became the head.
To his left was his gofer, the pale, deadpan assistant producer, Trey Halstead. Beside Trey, Whisper Jansen was leaning forward, her scrubbed, unadorned face frozen in concentration as she aimed a Sony TG1, billed as the world’s smallest camcorder, at the producer, hoping to capture every syllable of his words of wisdom for her boss, Carmen Sandoval, and, after that, posterity, I suppose.
Next to her, Fitzpatrick slumped, his beard pressed against his chest, looking as if he’d had another rough night and exuding a boozy-sweaty musk that had prompted me to move my chair as far away from his as I could without bumping into our director, Tessa Ruscha.
Her sullen silence made me wonder if she was catching a Fitz whiff, too. Or maybe she was reacting to the not-so-funny two-lesbians joke Gibby Lewis was telling to a stand-up pal of his named Howard something, who was helping him with the opening monologue.
Howard laughed like a howler monkey even before the punch line, but the joke definitely wasn’t playing too well with floor manager Lolita Snapps, who’d been damaged in the bombing and was shaking her bandaged head at the comic’s choice of material.
If our final table mate had heard any of Gibby’s utterances, she wasn’t showing it. April Edding, whom I’d met at the villa the night of the rat, rested languidly on her chair, eyes active behind her large aviator glasses, as she studied her iPad.
“Zip it, Gibby,” Trey Halstead said, identifying the room’s main disruptive element and, from the look on our new, possibly temporary star’s pliable mug, making an instant enemy. Not that Trey cared. The pale young man’s only concern seemed to be satisfying Max’s every whim. Any other thoughts or deeds he kept under wraps.
“First, in case some of you may not have heard, I have some good news,” Max said. And April’s attentiveness was suddenly matching Whisper’s and Trey’s. “The police have caught the bastard who murdered Des. Not some druggie or fruitcake, as you may suspect. A well-known restaurateur, Roger Charbonnet. I know the guy. I’ve played cards with him at Hillcrest.”
“Christ, I know him, too,” Gibby said. “What was the deal? Why’d he do it?”
Max shrugged. “Cops haven’t said. Or what led them to him.”
“There’s going to be a news conference any minute,” April informed us. “I’ve been checking my L.A. Times alerts. Nothing yet.”
“Keep us posted,” Tessa said. “We all want to know what’s going on.”
I considered enlightening them. “It’s all because of me,” I could have said. But in spite of the occupational road I’d taken, I wasn’t really that “it’s me” guy. In fact, I should have known better than to even harbor that thought. I’d seen enough evidence of mental telepathy to believe in it.
“Billy.”
It was April who’d called my name. She was staring at me, smiling. “I must be slow today,” she said, holding up her iPad. “The Smoking Gun made the obvious connection.”
“What?” Max asked. “Lemme see.”
“The fight at Malibu,” April said. “Remember. It was all over the Internet. Billy tossing Roger Charbonnet into the pool.” By now, I had given up playing the “didn’t toss him in the pool” card.
“That’s right,” Gibby said, staring at me, mouth hanging open in a mixture of surprise and amusement.
They were all staring at me. And not in a totally friendly way. With the exception of Gibby’s pal, they’d all been affected by the explosion, and they no doubt felt I’d been hiding something they deserved to know—why Roger had gone from iron chef to behind-iron-bars chef.
What the heck. Brueghel said the news would be out soon enough.
“The detectives believe Roger Charbonnet meant that bomb for me,” I said.
“It wasn’t … Des wasn’t …?” Fitz sputtered, trying to process what I’d just said.
“At the villa, the rat!” April exclaimed. “Tell them about the rat.”
“By all means,” Max said.
“Somebody broke into Des’s place, where I’ve been staying, and left a rat cooking in the oven,” I told them. “I thought it was just a bad joke. I should have taken it more seriously.”
“That can’t be,” Fitz said, shaking his shaggy head in obvious confusion. “The rat was …”
“Was what?” I asked.
He stared at me, glassy-eyed. Then he got it together. “Don’t mind me,” he said. “I’m about as sharp as a beach ball today. Still bolloxed from last night.”
That’s when the ringtones started.
First was “Ode to Spring” on April’s iPhone. She answered, said a few words I couldn’t hear, and signed off. “Police Chief Weidemeyer is meeting with the press at the new headquarters at First and Spring.”
Max ordered Trey to turn on the TV set in the corner of the room.
Trey was complying when the lilting sounds of “Frim-Fram Sauce” issued from my pocket.
“Enough with the goddamn cellphones,” Max yelled. “Turn ’em off. This is supposed to be a rehearsal.”
My caller was Carmen Sandoval. “Hello, Billy,” she began.
“Carmen, I’m sorry,” I said, “but Max wants us to turn off our phones.”
“Tell him to go fuck himself.”
I passed the word on to Max.
“Give Carmen my best,” he said.
“Okay, back on again,” I said.
“Bravo. Are you on, too, Whisper?”
I looked across the table and saw that Whisper had a phone to her ear. “Yes, I am, Carmen,” I heard her say through my phone.
The network veep summarized the Smoking Gun announcement in a few succinct words before asking me if the website was correct in assuming I was Roger’s intended victim.
“It looks that way,” I said.
“When I have more time, Billy, I would love to know why you’ve kept this information from the news-gathering network that’s paying you so handsomely. But right now, there are more important things to cover.
“You are about to be besieged by every media outlet in the free world. I’d like to remind you that as a WBC employee, you owe us a certain exclusivity on this fast-breaking story.”
I was not at all certain that was true. But if I wanted to continue working for the network, there was little point in discussing it.
“When we’re through talking, I want you to turn off your phone. Avoid the other media at all cost. If any of them manage to get past the gate, call security immediately.
“Now, Whisper, I’ll be phoning Wanda in D.C.”—Wanda Lorinski was the producer of the network’s half-hour News Tonight!—“to tell her Billy has confirmed the Smoking Gun rumor and that we, by that I mean you, Whisper, will have him ready in a studio here for a Q-and-A with Jim, as early in tonight’s show as Wanda can arrange.” Jim McBride anchored the nightly news half-hour from the nation’s capital.
“While I clear things with Wanda, please inform Max that he’ll have to shift things around on tonight’s show to make room for a more in-depth Billy interview. I’ll make sure that it will be plugged on the news.”
“Ah, about Billy’s Midnight interview?” Whisper asked, lowering her tiny voice even more than usual. “You don’t want Gibby to do it, right?”
“God, no. He’d pause mid-question for a fart joke. Get Marcus Oliphant.”
That was a name from the past. Marcus Oliphant had been the late-news anchor for the net’s L.A.-owned-and-operated station KWBC back when I’d lived in the city.
“But watch out for the old boy,” Carmen cautioned Whisper. “Telling him he’ll be guesting on a network show is liable to give him wood.”
“I’ll phone him,” Whisper said, without a hint of irony.
The conference call was over. Never once was I asked if I wanted to talk about my history with Roger Charbonnet in front of 8.5 million viewers.
“We have to rush, Billy,” Whisper said as she circled the table. “We’ve less than twenty-seven minutes to get you sponged and in the chair.”
As we headed to the door, Max bellowed, “Where the hell are you going, Billy? This is a rehearsal. There’s blocking …”
Whisper, her voice reedy but clear, evoked the name of Carmen, mentioned my News Tonight! appearance, and promised to have me back within the hour.
“No later,” Max said, trying to save face.
But Whisper wasn’t finished with him. “Oh, and about tonight’s show,” she said. “You’ll have to make a change in the lineup.”
“At this hour, that’s fucking impossible,” Max said, his face reddening. “Forget it.”
“Carmen will be very disappointed,” Whisper said.
For a second or two, Max pursed his lips and relaxed them, staring at the table in front of him. Then he stopped that and asked, “What is it she wants, exactly?”
“A longer interview with Billy. Conducted by Marcus Oliphant. It’ll be promoed on the evening news.”
“Makes sense, I suppose,” Max mumbled.
I could feel him glaring at our backs as we left the room. Closing the door behind us, I asked, “How often does Carmen put you in the middle like that?”
“This was the first time,” Whisper said, with more than a hint of wonder. “She likes to order people around herself. And now I know why. It’s fun.”