City of Mirrors (5 page)

“We're just trying to preserve what's left of our film, Diana,” Beth spoke softly, as if giving me an acting direction. “You know how the media distorts everything. And there's Jake Jackson to consider. If he feels his star image is going to be harmed by being associated with this project now, he may pull out. It'll all collapse around us.”

I realized that Beth needed this movie as much as I did. It's not easy for women directors.

“She's right.” Zaitlin let out a long sigh, then said “Sorry if I sounded unfeeling.” He was now in fatherly mode.

But he hadn't sounded unfeeling. He'd sounded panicked. And I wondered if it was only the movie he was worried about.

“Are you all right?” he asked me.

“No. I had to pick Mother up at the Bel Air Hotel, and then I found a young woman's murdered body. No, I'm not all right.”

He stood and came around to me. “Let's get you something to eat.” He helped me to my feet. “You can wish Ben a happy birthday, go home, and get some sleep. I just want you to know that I'll do everything not to shut down the film.”

“Why did you put up with so much from Jenny?” I asked him.

“I told you, we were in too deep to fire her.”

“Why did you hire her?”

“Because she was good. I thought she had it. Star quality.”

My eyes met Beth's, and she quickly stared down at her motorcycle boots.

“What's with all the questions?” Zaitlin said. “You're lucky to have gotten this part, Diana. That reminds me—Pedro Romero, the director, is here. I want you to meet him. He has a new script.”

“I'm not up to meeting anyone.”

“This is an opportunity. Take it. Nora would. She had a wonderful brutal strength.” There was longing in his voice, and I wondered if Zaitlin had gone to bed with my mother. “But I think you should leave her here with me,” he added gently.

“I can't.”

The office door opened, and a man in jeans, black T-shirt, and an army-green windbreaker stepped into the room. I froze, recognizing the dark hair graying at the temples and the tough crooked nose. It was the man who had been looking at Bella Casa yesterday. The man who saw me in the pool. The man who Celia told me had beaten her up. His dark eyes looked straight through me as if I didn't exist.

“S
orry, I didn't realize you had company. I'll wait outside,” the man said to Zaitlin.

“No, no. We have a problem on our hands. We need to talk.” Zaitlin gestured in my direction. “Leo Heath, this is Diana Poole.”

“We've met,” I said. “Except you gave a different name. But maybe you don't remember.”

“How could I forget?” His smile slipped sideways as his dark eyes grew bemused.

Afraid I wouldn't be able to control my anger, I said nothing more. I didn't want to compromise Celia in front of Zaitlin.

Zaitlin turned to Beth. “Take Diana and introduce her to Pedro Romero before he leaves. He's too artistic to stay for any length of time at a party.”

As we walked out the door, the clamor of the guests assaulted me again. Beth and I made our way through the throng and out onto the veranda. “What does this Heath do?” I asked.

“He owns a security firm. Does a lot of work for Zaitlin. These are his men working the party now. He also helps Zaitlin get things done that need to be done.” She rolled her lips inward, pressing them together.

“So he's a fixer.”

“You can look at it that way.”

I gazed out over the rolling lawn, the glittering pool, the tennis court, the rented pavilion, and in the distance a guesthouse, lamplight burning in its paned windows. More security guards looking like stern funeral directors with buds in their ears and cords running down their thick necks patrolled the grounds. In Hollywood, a party without security was like a premiere without limos. What was it about us that we needed so much expensive protection? Maybe it was for our threatened egos.

“Is Heath going to fix Jenny Parson?” I asked her.

“Maybe ease the situation. Did you have any personal dealings with her?”

“Such as?”

“I don't know.” She shrugged, and for a moment her square, defiantly unfeminine jaw appeared soft and weak. It was as if her strength had been drained from her. “I don't believe in good and evil. But if I did, Jenny would be evil.”

“How?”

“She sensed people's weaknesses. Knew how to use them.”

“Did she know yours?”

“My fear of never working again? That's my weakness. Who doesn't have that fear in this town?”

Her gaze settled on a man lurking in the shadows of a large potted palm, surrounded by his walking-around guys. It was as if he was too sensitive to come out into the light.

“Pedro!” She waved, nudging me toward him.

My hand automatically went up to smooth my hair. And for the first time in the entire day, I thought about my lack of lipstick, blush, mascara, and powder. But it was far too late for any of that.

“Pedro Romero, this is Diana Poole, the actress Robert told you about,” she announced.

“I know who she is.” A small, thin man with dark slicked-back hair took a few tentative steps toward me, then bowed slightly.

“I'll leave you two to chat.” Duty accomplished, she hurried back toward Zaitlin's office.

“You carry death with you.” Romero's eyes twinkled darkly.

“My mother's ashes.”

“Ah, Nora Poole. I always wanted to meet her.”

I couldn't help notice that he didn't say he'd always wanted to work with her.

“It is very Latin of you to be so intimate with death,” he said. “In my country we celebrate it, we make fun of it, and we defy it.” Raising a fist, he pulled his legs together and thrust out his chest. He was a matador.

“No, I'm afraid it's very American of me. The door locks on my car don't work, and I was worried someone might steal her.”

He chuckled. “You mean ‘American' in that you always have a more pragmatic reason?”

“Yes.”

“I like that you do not apologize for being American. Most everyone here does.” He flipped a small hand indicating the guests. Then his eyes burrowed in on me, and I watched him studying the planes of my face with the impersonal eye of a camera.

“I enjoyed our conversation very much,” he said, as if he had just finished editing a film. He took my hand and kissed it so softly I barely felt his finely trimmed mustache. Patting the urn, he added, “I finally get to meet Nora Poole.” He slipped away toward the living room, his guys miraculously appearing around him again.

“Diana!” Ben Zaitlin pushed his way through a group pretending to listen to a newly axed but still famous news anchor pontificate. “My mother sent me out here to give you this.” Ben held out a plate piled with food. “And I'm not to mention the ashes.” His smooth pale skin was flushed from too many drinks. Black hair flopped around a lean pointed face.

“Thanks for the food but I'm not hungry, besides I don't have enough hands to hold the plate. Happy birthday, Ben.”

Ben balanced the plate on the balustrade. He had the same elegance as his mother, and the same aura of sadness. He was dressed in a stylishly hip suit with a pink rumpled shirt hanging, untucked.

“I haven't seen you in a long time. How's Princeton?” I asked.

Putting their children in Ivy League colleges was still important to Hollywood royalty. After all the years on the West Coast they were still looking for East Coast acceptance.

“I flunked out. Mother was pissed.” He shoved his hands into his pants pockets and swayed as if he were trying to balance on a rowboat.

Surprised, I said, “So you're living at home again?”

“I have my own place. Please don't ask the next question, Diana.”

“And what would that be?”

“‘So what are you going to do now?' I'm so sick of talking about my future. I wish I didn't have to think about one.”

“All right, I won't ask.” I couldn't help smiling just a little.

Glancing around, he lowered his voice. “I just heard someone say they got a message on their cell that Jenny Parson was murdered. Is it true?”

“Yes. I suppose you're going to know soon enough. I found her body.”

His eyebrows shot up and his head went back. “Wow. What was that like? Sorry, I didn't mean to sound like a jerk.”

“I know what you meant. It was awful.”

He shifted uneasily. “I guess that's why Robert hasn't come out of his office yet. How come you found her?”

I briefly told him why I had gone to her condo and where I'd seen her corpse.

“God,” he murmured, taking his hands from his pockets and resting one on the balustrade to steady himself. “I always wondered why Robert hired Jenny. He was always bitching about her. But why would someone want to kill her?”

It was then I realized that only Ben had asked that question. Not his mother, not Zaitlin, and not Beth Woods. Not even me. “I don't know.”

“I saw her,” he said flatly.

“When?”

“Last night. I was at this club called The Den. She was drunk and arguing with some guy.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“No. I don't even think she knew who I was, meaning Robert Zaitlin's stepson.”

“You didn't introduce yourself?”

“I try to stay away from what's Robert's business.”

A waiter paused next to Ben, offering a drink from his silver tray. He grabbed a mojito, spilling some. I declined.

The waiter moved on as Ben surveyed the white party tent. “Looks like a meeting place for a bunch of evangelists. I wonder who this party is really for?” He took a long sip. “None of these people are my friends.”

“Your parents don't know how else to do it. Business is personal in this town. It's all the same to them.”

He poked a finger at the hot dog turning greasy cold on my plate. “Dodger Dog. Robert took me to one game. He bought me a hot dog. It made him feel like a father. He's never gotten over it. What was your father like, Diana?”

“Like you, I never knew him. He'd died crashing his car into a tree on his way to the hospital to visit his wife and meet his new daughter. Mother turned him into a saint. A young husband and actor who lost his life while desperately speeding to see his new baby daughter.”

“Do you believe that shit?”

“No. A woman died in the car with him.”

“You're kidding.” His onyx-colored eyes were swimming now.

“My mother in her hospital bed with the infant me suckling at her breast contacted her lawyer who paid the woman's family off. The media never knew about my father's other love. But she made sure that I grew up knowing my father had cheated on her. She believed children needed the truth, not fairy tales, though obviously she felt differently about what her public needed.”

“God, how do any of us even function?” He downed the rest of his cocktail, smacked his lips, and shoved the empty glass at a passing waiter who took it.

I remembered the young me turning my phantom father, sometimes known as “that bastard” by mother, into my Leading Man. The only male who could be whatever I wanted him to be. Other men faded in comparison to the handsome, kind, always young, thoughtful father I had created. Except Colin. He somehow managed to exceed the fantasy. Exhaustion flooded through me. Too many memories and the discovery of a corpse had taken its toll.

“I better be going. It was nice seeing you again, Ben,” I said.

“Wait.” He leaned close. “How's your friend Celia?” His long thick lashes, which most women would kill for, shaded his eyes.

“She's okay.”

“I know.”

I looked sharply at him. “Know what?”

“About her and Robert.”

“How did you find out?”

“I began to listen to people. It's amazing when you stop trying to be important and just listen to what people are really saying. Not all the bullshit. It's amazing how many secrets you can pick up.”

“Have you talked to your parents about Celia?”

“Why? They never mention her to me. They had no problem telling me Robert wasn't my real father. That my real father raped my mother. And she's created a name for herself fighting for rape victims and their unwanted children. I'm her poster boy. But they couldn't admit Robert's had a mistress for ten years? It was like I was the only one in the universe who didn't know. I felt like such a loser.” He glared up at the stars poking through the night sky, and I thought I saw tears in his eyes.

“You're not a loser. Nobody wants to hurt anybody, Ben. Or be hurt. And they certainly didn't want to hurt you.”

“Why didn't my parents just get divorced?” he blurted, sounding like a teenager.

“Money.”

Surprised at my frankness, he burst out laughing, staggering slightly. “You are
soooo
cool. You're not like the rest of them. You say what's on your mind.” He wagged a finger at me. “You'll never get ahead that way in this town.”

I smiled. “Of course there's the possibility that despite everything they still love each other and you.”

“Now you don't sound like the cool Diana.” His expression clouded. “Maybe I don't want to be loved by them. Nobody's thought of that, have they?” Pausing, he moved closer. “I've always wanted to say this to you. But don't get all uptight. It's a compliment.”

“What?”

“Watching your earlier films when I was young got me through my adolescence. You were
soooo
sexy.” His breath was hot and moist against my check.

I laughed. “Glad to be of help.”

Below us on the lawn the caterers rolled out a big birthday cake with twenty-one candles ablaze. My heart sank for Ben. Robert had finally appeared and stood hand in hand with Gwyn. They both extended their arms toward him, beckoning him like two divas competing for the same audience of one.

“This is so fucked.” Quickly, he grabbed my shoulders, pulling me to him. With the urn wedged awkwardly between us, he kissed me hard on the lips. Whispering in my ear, he said, “I just wanted to kiss a woman Robert hasn't had. He hasn't, has he?”

“No,” I whispered back.

From the lawn, Gwyn stared up at me as Ben lurched down the stairs and across to where they were waiting. By the accusing look on her face, I knew Gwyn had seen the kiss. Misunderstood it. The family and many of the guests followed the cake into the tent. The rap music stopped.

To the dissonant sound of off-key voices singing “Happy Birthday,” I stood alone, haunted by Ben's question: Who would want to murder Jenny? Then I caught sight of Ryan Johns sneaking across the lawn with the Blond Sliver at his side. They paused at the guesthouse door, he spoke to her, and she tossed her head back and giggled. Then he quickly shoved her inside, closing the door behind them. Christ, he wanted me to drive him home.

When the birthday song ended, there was quiet for a brief moment, and then a man's voice speaking in a low firm tone floated up to me from the patio below. I peered over the balustrade and saw Heath, who “got things done” for Zaitlin. I watched him talk importantly on his BlackBerry, at ease with the power of his body. Had he thought that Celia needed to “get done”? I wanted to confront him, but I had promised her not to say anything.

I assessed the plate of food that Ben had left on the balustrade. Adjusting the urn in my arms, I grabbed the plate, leaned over the railing, aimed, and dropped it. It landed perfectly—crashing and shattering just behind where he stood. Food flew in all directions.

In one swift movement, holding his cell in his left hand, he reached inside his jacket with the other and spun around looking up toward the balcony. Seeing me, he stopped in mid-action, hand still inside his windbreaker.

His aggressive response startled me. Gathering myself, I said, “I'm so sorry, Mr. Heath, or is it Mr. Ward?”

His hand fell to his side. “You can get hurt doing something like that.”

“Do you like to hurt women?”

His forehead wrinkled and he cocked his head to one side, still looking up at me. “I think I liked you better naked.” A waiter rushed to him and started to pick up the pieces of plate and food. Heath turned on his heels and strode away.