scene.”
“Ian should have thought of that before he started banging that brainless bundle of silicone and peroxide.”
“You don’t know that for a fact,” he said. “The rumor about Ian and Devon is just that-a rumor. Probably started by some flack at the studio to get advance buzz about the movie.”
“I don’t know about Germany, Herr Muhlenberg, but here in New York, all rumors are true.”
“Look, I’m not a marriage counselor,” he said. “I know you and Ian have problems, but I also know you’re a professional. What’ll it take to get you into wardrobe and onto the set?”
She was wearing a short royal blue kimono with a busy floral and peacock design. She tugged on the sash and the kimono fell to the floor.
At a thousand bucks a minute, the sex cost the studio fifty-four thousand dollars. Edie wasn’t nearly as good as the underage star of his last film, but if you had to bang a forty-six-year-old diva to save your career, you could do a lot worse than Edie Coburn.
He lit the cigarette for her. She sucked in hard and blew it in his face. “I hope you’re not waiting for a standing ovation,” she said. “This was strictly business.”
“Right,” he said. “Then I can tell Ian we can expect you on the stage in thirty minutes.”
“Yeah. You might want to put some pants on first.”
Chapter 5
It wasn’t funny the first time. It wasn’t funny the hundredth. The director forced a smile.
Without makeup, Ian Stewart looked every day of his fifty-six years. He was a womanizing shit heel with a short fuse and a giant ego. “Russell Crowe Without the Charm,” one tabloid had called him. And Muhlenberg’s career was riding on him.
“I had a little talk with Edie,” Henry said.
“Little talk? You were in her trailer for nearly an hour. What’d you have to do?” he asked, rolling his tongue over his lips.
“Give me a break, Ian. This is your big scene. The one you insisted on. It added over three million dollars to the budget,” Henry said. “I did whatever it took. She’s ready to shoot. Now please, get into makeup before she changes her mind.”
Ian clicked his heels.
As far as Muhlenberg was concerned, the scene he was about to shoot was a total piece of shit. A black-tie wedding reception. Ian was the groom. Devon Whitaker, the twenty-two-year-old blonde Ian was banging, was the bride. Edie was the ex-wife. She crashed the wedding, gun in hand, and shot the happy couple.
But wait-it was all a dream sequence, so the big ham got to die dramatically on camera and still come back for the rest of the film. All it did was muddy up a script that already had the life sucked out of it by four different writers. But Ian wouldn’t make the movie without it.
“Hey, did you hear about Sid Roth?” Ian asked.
“Yeah, I heard he dropped dead over breakfast at the Regency. Heart attack.”
“More like poison if you believe the rumor mill.” Ian laughed. “Doesn’t surprise me. That bastard had so many enemies, it’s a wonder nobody killed him sooner.”
“I can see you’re all broken up about it,” Henry said.
“I’m thrilled,” Ian said. “With Roth dead, I move up another notch on the list of most hated people in show business. Three more and I’ll be in the top ten.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, you’re number one around here,” Henry said.
Chapter 6
Captain Delia Cates is NYPD to the core. Born and raised in Harlem, she’s a third-generation cop with a career path that puts her on the fast track to becoming the city’s first female police commissioner-Columbia University, four years in the Marine Corps, and a master’s in criminal justice from John Jay College.
She’s somewhere north of forty, quite attractive, with dark brown eyes, flawless cocoa skin, and a warm, easy smile. Inside, she’s tougher than a three-dollar steak. She’s also a born leader and the best boss I’ve ever had.
It’s not every day she summons me for a one-on-one, and this morning’s invitation caught me off guard. I walked into her office at 7:55.
It was a typical no-nonsense Cates meeting. She spelled out what she wanted, I responded with a few well- placed “yeses” and “Captains,” and I walked out at 7:56 only slightly more conflicted than when I went in.
I headed for the briefing room and took a seat with Kylie and eleven other detectives. Cates walked in at 8:00 on the nose.
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” she said. “As you all know, the mayor has rolled out a red carpet three thousand miles long in the hopes of winning the hearts and wallets of Hollywood’s movie moguls. Our job is to make them feel welcome and safe. Basically, it’s the same drill we go through every day, but this week we have five times as many people to serve and protect. A lot of the goings-on will be behind closed doors. Meetings, lunches, tours of production facilities-all in controlled environments, a lot of them with their own rent-a-cops.
“But there’s also going to be a number of high-visibility public events, and that brings out the stalkers, the fans, the paparazzi, and a shitload of other crazies. The biggest one is a red carpet shindig tonight at Radio City. I just spoke to the DI at Midtown North, and people are already starting to camp out. We’ll have at least a hundred uniforms working the crowd, plus another thirty in plainclothes, including all of you. The bad news is that this is going to be one damn long day. The good news is that the mayor loosened the purse strings, and there’s plenty of overtime money in the budget.
“Tuesday and Wednesday, there’ll be fewer public events, but you know these folks like to party after a hard day, so take your cell phones to the bathroom with you. Then on Thursday-”
Her cell went off. “See what I mean?”
We all recognized the ring tone. Cates called it her “bat phone.” Anyone who had that number took priority over whatever she was doing at the moment.
She answered. “Captain Cates.” She listened stone-faced for fifteen seconds, then said “We’re on it,” and hung up.
“We’re off to a bad start,” she said. “We have a dead Hollywood producer on the floor of the dining room of the Regency-Sixty-first and Park. Possible homicide. Jordan and MacDonald-get on it.”
I can’t quite explain what happened next. Kylie was up and heading for the door. But I just sat there processing the reality of what had woken me up in the middle of the night. Kylie and I were a team, and we were going out on our first case together. It was quite a rush. It couldn’t have been more than three seconds, but it was three seconds too long for Cates.
“Jordan,” she barked. “Go.”
I went.
Cates snapped right back to the briefing. “For those of you who haven’t met her, Jordan’s new partner is Detective Kylie MacDonald. She’s on temporary assignment-”
It’s the last thing I heard before I got to the door, but I no longer had any idea how I felt about that.
