Guilt

“I don’t remember specifics.”

“You buy what you’re told, all part of the job.”

“That is the job. Period.”

“Service assistant.”

“Yeah, it’s stupid, I know. I need to eat, okay?”

“You get a call to-”

“Never a call, always email.”

“Buy me bugs.”

“I order all kinds of things. That’s what I’m paid to do.”

“You do all the purchasing for the Premadonny compound?”

“No, just …” Head shake.

“Just things they don’t want their name on?”

Silence. Wrong guess. I’d try the same question later.

“So how many times have you ordered beetles and knives?”

“Just that once.”

“You didn’t find it weird?”

“Wondering wastes time.”

“Busy guy,” I said. “They work you hard.”

“Like I said, I like to eat.”

“Don’t we all.”

He stopped. “You don’t get it. I don’t ask questions and I’m not allowed to answer any.”

“About …”

“Anything. Ever. That’s Rule Number One. Numbers Two through Ten say refer back to One.”

“That sounds like something your boss told you.”

No reply.

I said, “Privacy’s a big deal for Premadonny.”

“They’re all like that.”

“Stars?”

“You can call ’em that.”

“What do you call ’em?”

“The gods.” His lips turned down. A sneer full of reflexive disdain. The same flavor of contempt I’d heard in Len Coates’s voice.

Perfect opening for me.

“Funny, Kev, you’d think they’d want nothing but attention.”

“They want it, all right. On their terms.” Long slow intake of breath. “Now I’m fucked, I already said too much.”

I said, “Service assistant. That could mean anything.”

Kevin Dubinsky emitted a high, coarse sound that didn’t approach laughter. “It means fucking gopher. Know what they actually pay me?”

“Not much.”

“Less than that.” He laughed.

Resisting the urge to pluck the loose thread from his collar, I said, “That’s the way the Industry works. The gods perch on Olympus, the peasants grovel.”

“Better believe it.”

“So no sense getting screwed on their account, Kevin.”

“I like to eat, man.”

“I’m discreet. Tell me about the job.”

“What’s to tell? I order stuff.”

More eye movement. Time to revisit his first evasion. I said, “Not for the entire compound.”

He gnawed his lip.

“Eventually we’re going to find out, Kevin, no sense complicating your life by getting tagged as uncooperative.”

“Please. I can’t help you.”

“Who’d you buy that crap for?”

Silence.

I said, “Or maybe we should assume you bought it for your own personal use, that could get really interesting.”

“Her, okay? I only buy for her, he’s got his own slave.”

“Who’s that?”

“Like I know? I do what I’m told.”

“You buy stuff she doesn’t want traced back to her.”

“I buy for her because she can’t dirty her hands being a real person.” He laughed, patted a trouser pocket. “I use a Centurion-a black card-just for her swag. Get to pretend every day.”

“Must get interesting.”

“Nah, it sucks.”

“Boring purchases?”

“Boring expensive purchases.” He mimed gagging himself with a finger.

I said, “You buy, the stuff ships to Culver City, the paperwork gets filed somewhere else, so if someone goes through her garbage they can’t figure out what she’s into.”

“Maybe that’s part of it,” he said. “I always figure, it’s God forbid they do anything for themselves.”

“Do you handle groceries and stuff like that?”

“Nah, that goes through her staff at the compound.”

“What do you buy?”

“ ‘Special purchases.’ ”

“Meaning?”

“Whatever she feels like.”

We walked half a block before he stopped again, drew me to another display window. Manikins who’d have to plump up to be anorexic were draped in black crepe garments that might be coats. Blank white faces projected grief. Nothing like a funeral for selling product.

He said, “I’m going to tell you this so you’ll understand, okay? One time-I don’t know this personally, I was told it-they actually set up a scene so she could fill her car up and look like a regular person. They picked a gas station in Brentwood, Apex paid to clear the place out for a day, masked it off with those silver sheets photographers use so no one could see what was going on. They gave her a car that wasn’t hers, something normal, and she pretended to fill it up.”

I said, “For one of those stars-are-just-like-us deals.”

Another contemptuous look. “Five takes for her to get the hang of putting gas in a fucking car. She had no fucking clue.”

“Unreal.”

“Her life is unreal, man. So what’d she need those bugs for?”

I smiled.

“Okay, I get it, shut up and cooperate.”

“Do your purchases get audited?”

“Every month a prick from accounting goes over every damn thing. I charge a pencil that can’t be explained, my ass is grass. A girl who used to work in the next cubicle, she bought for-I can’t tell you who-she got busted for a bottle of nail polish.”

I said, “Sucks. So what’s the most expensive item you’ve ever bought for her?”

“Easy,” he said. “Last year, time share on a Gulfstream Five. Seven figures up front plus serious monthly maintenance. She never uses it.”