The Martini Shot (21 page)

“Oh.”

“Someone will tell them you were selling it as well.”

“I don't care about that.”

“Just deny,” I said, and strengthened my tone. “I spoke to Skylar before we wrapped last night. I know he was in some kind of trouble.”

Laura looked away and dragged on her cigarette. “I can't talk about this right now.”

“You
have
to.”

She was just a few years out of high school. Grieving, of course, and also confused. She'd gotten into the sales thing with her lover as a lark, not for profit. Their “operation” simply provided them with free smoke. In her mind, she and Skylar were providing a service for the crew.

Thursday was payday, and on Friday the out-of-town workers were given their per diem. So, every week, on Thursday and Friday, Skylar and Laura sold weed to the crew. Eighths for fifty, quarters for a hundred, three-fifty for an ounce. It was common knowledge to damn near everyone, except for Bruce, Ellen, our few straitlaced coworkers, and the crew members who were commonly thought of as untrustworthy.

“Laura, if I'm going to help you, I need to know what's going on.”

“Why would I need help?”

“Look at me,” I said, and she did. “If Skylar's murder was connected to what was found in his safe, make no mistake, you're in danger, too.”

Laura tapped ash on the thigh of her jeans, though there was a foil tray beside her on the bed. “What do you want to know?”

“Tell me what's been going on.”

Laura hit her Marlboro and exhaled a stream of smoke into the room. “Skylar was all jammed up.”

“I know he was in trouble.”

She nodded. “He fronted a pound to someone, and that guy couldn't pay. Skylar owed the connect about five grand…”

“And?”

“He had most of the cash he needed to settle up, but he was short by twenty-five hundred. He put the legitimate cash together with some phony money.”

“Phony money. Why?”

“He made a mistake, Vic.”

“What the
fuck.
”

“Counterfeit. It looked real. Our connect had sent a couple of guys to collect, and Skylar paid them off. When they figured out that some of the money wasn't right…” She shook her head.

“
What?
Say it, Laura.”

“They threatened us. Skylar put them off. He'd sold one package, and he was hoping to off the last pound…the one that the detectives found in his safe. He planned to make it right. He was going to tell them that
he'd
been duped, and that he was good for the rest of the cash.”

“He took too long.”

“Yes.” Laura's hand shook as she brought her cigarette to her lips.

“Who did Skylar front the pound to? Where would he get counterfeit money?” When Laura didn't answer, I said, “Was it people on our crew?”

“I can't tell you,” she said. “Skylar wouldn't want me to. He didn't want to involve anyone else in this, including you. You know him. Skylar was honorable. He told me that he'd gotten us into this, and he'd get us out himself.”

It sounded like him. I'd offered him money, but he'd declined. Pride and his notion of manhood had done him in. That was who he was.

“Tell me how this works,” I said. “How you two brought the stuff into town.”

“Normally it got FedExed in from California. We had an arrangement with a guy Skylar had met on a show in Los Angeles. We always paid him within a week, also by overnight mail. One time a package got seized in the process, and Skylar made good on it. So there wasn't any problem with this dude. But this time, when the problem did come up, Skylar was light on cash.”

“If that was the deal, why'd the connect send in a couple of guys to collect the payment?”

“We'd bought three pounds on this go-round. Three pounds is about ten thousand dollars at wholesale. For that kind of money, he felt the need to send couriers.”

“They worked for him?”

“I got the impression they were freelance. Local collection agents.”

“You saw them?”

“They came here one night to meet with Skylar and pick up the money. Two white guys, brothers, in their twenties. I think they were twins. They were okay that night, on the surface. You know how someone can smile at you, but there's nothing friendly there? It was…”

“Laura. Do you know their names?”

“Wayne and Cody. That's what they said.”

“And after they figured out the money was fake, what happened?”

“They told Skylar he had a day to make it right. Two days passed, and Skylar got killed.”

“You have no proof it was them, do you?”

“No.”

“Skylar could have been robbed and shot at random.”

“I suppose so.” I watched her take a last drag and crush out her smoke in the foil tray.

“You have a cell number for this Cody or Wayne?”

“I captured one, yeah.”

“They phoned you?”

“Not since Skylar died.”

“What did they say when they called you?”

“
Wayne
called me. It wasn't about business. He said he liked to look at me. And what he'd do to me if he got the chance. Shit like that.”

“Give me Wayne's number,” I said. Laura read it off her phone and I typed it into the notes app of mine. I stood up. “Hold on a minute and stay right here.”

I left the house and walked outside. Skylar's crew had left, but there were still some people up on the porch. I went down to the yard and called Bernard, the night manager of my hotel. When you live in a hotel, the desk people, the bartenders, the housekeepers, and the valets become friends. Some become family. I got hold of Bernard and told him what I needed. He said he'd hook me up for the production rate.

Walking back into the house, I tried to get my head around the situation. I wondered who Skylar had fronted the pound to and where Skylar had gotten the counterfeit money. Back in Laura's bedroom, I found her where I'd left her. She'd lit another cigarette.

“Pack up some things,” I said. “Enough to last a few days at least.”

“Why?”

“You can't stay here. It's not safe.”

“Where am I going?”

“To my hotel.”

“I'm staying with you?”

“No.”

“Annette, then.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Everyone knows you two are together, Vic.”

“Let's go.”

It was almost three a.m. by the time I got Laura settled in her room. I went up to my suite, where I found Annette in my bed. Her breathing was deep and there was that clicking sound. I stripped naked and got under the covers and spooned myself against her. She was on her side and she reached back to touch my thigh. I knew she preferred to wake up in her own room. She had come here, unselfishly, for me. Annette was everything I'd wanted to find in a woman since my divorce. The physical and the emotional, all in one. I stroked her arm softly.

“I'm here,” I said. “Go back to sleep.”

I only had two and half hours before I had to get up for call. When I closed my eyes I saw Skylar, lying on a morgue slab, his skin gray and marbleized, his scalp removed, his once healthy body cut up and autopsied.

I was sick with grief and anger. I couldn't stop thinking about my friend.

We were shooting on the soundstages the next day, located in the warehouse space of a Sam's Club, now shuttered, in an industrial area outside the city limits. For budgetary reasons, we'd built sets there that we used with frequency: the Homicide offices, the ADA's office, the courtroom, Tanner's apartment, and others. We didn't have any moves on stage days, which was convenient, but the hours were typically long. Once inside the walls of the warehouse, where there were no windows, it was easy to lose track of time. Here, we typically worked fourteen- to sixteen-hour days.

I parked my four-banger rental and walked across a dirt-and-asbestos lot, past Teamsters who had shuttled in crew and brought the trucks, and our security people, a freelance outfit of fathers, tight friends, cousins, uncles, daughters, and sons, all of them black and local. Security was run by a man named Toomer who had built his business rapidly after the state's film production tax credit was enacted, and he now serviced the majority of the shows and features that came through town. His staff were all physically imposing, the women included, which was helpful in defusing a situation before it progressed into something violent. They had nicknames like Manimal, She Girl, Creep, and Seminole Joe, and they were family men and women who rode motorcycles on weekends, and owned homes, and barbecued, and tended to their lawns. Some had been straight-up gangsters. One of them, Barry, aka Black Barry, a very large man with a bulbous nose and ridiculous guns, said “Sir” to me but cut his eyes away as I passed.

In the warehouse, I got my sides and watched the first rehearsal, a three-page scene in the Homicide offices (INT: HOMICIDE BULL PEN, POLICE HQ—DAY) between Tanner and his team. Brad Slaughter was there, ready as usual, along with the multiethnic cast of young actors who played his detectives. It was six a.m., and they had all been in the hair and makeup trailer since four. Despite the early hour, they looked fresh and groomed. Our hair and makeup department was aces.

Watching the rehearsal, it was clear to me that I had over-written the scene, and I noticed some spots where I could make some trims. It was a delicate thing to do. Actors, especially the ones who were trying to get noticed, didn't like to lose their lines. They were like the rest of the crew, always working on getting their next gig. As a courtesy, I conferred with Alan Lomax and told him what I thought we should do.

“I want to cut Alicia's line,” I said. “What she's saying, about the suspect having priors? We've mentioned that twice before in this ep. The information has already been conveyed.”

“It'll save me a little time in coverage,” said Lomax. “You want to tell her or should I?”

“I'll do it,” I said.

After the rehearsal, I caught up with Alicia Nichols, who played Detective Angie Antonelli (the “earthy” Italian-American detective on the squad), on the way to her trailer. She was an actress who always knew her lines, hit her marks, and was unfailingly polite to the staff, from production assistants on up. Alicia Nichols was well liked, but that didn't stop some of the male crew from calling her Alicia Nipples, or just Bullets, due to the fact that her bumps, long as fingertips, were visible through the fabric of her shirt and bra in every shot. In the old days, the network would have had to cover her up, but no more. Her “points” were considered a ratings booster.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I've gotta cut your only line.”

“It wasn't a very good line, anyway, Victor,” she said, and my face must have dropped, because she laughed and said, “I'm joking.”

“Right,” I said. She wasn't really joking. The line I'd written for her,
He's got a rap sheet as long as my arm,
was completely generic. Annette and I could have composed it while drunk in bed.

“You'll still be prominent in the shot.”

“Don't worry about it.”

“I'll make it up to you,” I said, and I would. She was a nice kid, someone's daughter who was out here trying to make it like everyone else. I'd give her some choice lines in one-fourteen. A soliloquy about a dog she once owned as a kid, and how she'd had to put it down. Something heartwarming like that.

I went back to the set as the stand-ins arrived, the grips set up the sticks and removed walls to accommodate the camera, and the electrics brought in lights. Ellen was talking to Gandy, one of Skylar's people, informing him that he was being promoted to gaffer. Gandy was mature, in his forties, a good lighting man who could handle the mechanics of the job. But, through no fault of his own, he had an interior personality and would make a poor manager. By the end of the shoot, Ellen would bring in someone from out of town to fill Skylar's position. Gandy would be a stopgap measure for now.

Brandon, our tall, bearded prop master, rolled the cart into Village and began to unfold the chairs.

“Here you go, boss,” he said, as he placed my chair beside me.

“How do you know that chair's mine?”

“It's got your name on it, sir.” It was our usual routine, but he didn't smile or look my way.

I had been thinking about Brandon just a few hours earlier, when I was lying awake in bed.

“You got a few minutes to talk to me later on?” I said.

“Sure thing,” he said.

He proceeded to unfold the director's chair, Lillie's, Ellen's, Eagle's, and the cast chairs for the lead and supporting actors. Brandon said nothing else and never once looked me in the eye.

The long day went slowly. Lunch, under a tent outside the warehouse, was a bit of a treat, as our caterer, Mike Perez, grilled filets and lobster tails (Surf and Turf Day) on a grate set over hot coals in halved oil drums. It was the last shooting day of the week, and the mood ordinarily would have been upbeat, but Skylar's death had thrown a cloud over the set. I sat with the hair and makeup department, pretended to study the family photographs on their phones; listened to the stories about their boyfriends, husbands, and children; and quietly ate my food. I looked around for Annette, but she was not in the tent. She had not been to the stages as of yet. I missed her.

We shot into the night. In the late hours, I had a minor bump in the road with an actress named Susan Pine, a lovely, petite young woman who played Constance Browning, written as an Ivy League–bred blonde who had ditched the plan to work for her father (he was, naturally, a buttoned-down, “cold and distant” industrialist, rich white men being the last allowable villains on television) after her graduation from Harvard Business School. Instead she had entered the police academy, where she thought she could “make a difference.”