CHAPTER 38
Seven years ago, after I returned from the war, I went into therapy, saw an excellent guy, Josh Moskowitz, who specialized in vets like me. That is, ex-military who’d gone through bloody hell and weren’t adjusting too well back home.
Like many of us, I had night terrors.
I kept hearing those boys in the bombed-out rear section of the CH-46, screaming as the helicopter went up in flames.
Dr. Moskowitz had an office in Santa Monica, a little office in a tall building on Fifteenth Street. I didn’t know it then, but Dr. Justine Smith worked in the same building.
I ran into her in the elevator one night, was thunderstruck in a way that you can’t explain by describing hair and eyes and curves. I rode up ten floors just staring at her before I realized that the elevator wasn’t going down.
She’d laughed at me, or maybe she just enjoyed seeing me go from zero to smitten in sixty seconds. Next time I saw her, I held the elevator door open, told her my name, and asked her to have dinner with me.
She said okay.
It was as if she’d cupped her hands around my heart.
Justine was a couple years younger than I was and maybe a decade wiser. Beautiful. Smart. Worked in a mental hospital most of the week, had a private practice and saw a handful of patients on Mondays and Wednesdays.
We had dinner together at a little Italian place out at Hermosa Beach, and I talked through it all. I told her more about myself over that one dinner than I’d told her since. I sensed she was a safe person, trustworthy, accepting, and she must have thought I was the kind of person who could open up.
Later she said that I was like a clam. With a rubber band around my shell. I laughed it off, said that she’d now met my real self when not in crisis. By the time we had that conversation, we were already in love.
Now Justine sat in a leather chair, swiveling gently from side to side. I came around the table and sat down next to her. Her face looked stiff.
She was so angry at me.
“I have a job offer,” she said. “A good one.”
“That didn’t take long.”
“I’ll complete my cases, including the new one if it’s a go. I didn’t give an answer yet, but that’s just negotiation. I’ll probably take the job.”
“I know this is a long shot, Justine, but imagine that I’m actually innocent here. Imagine that I never needed you more than I need you now.”
“Okay, Jack. Now you imagine that I just don’t care anymore.”
CHAPTER 39
Justine was at the wheel of her midnight-blue Jaguar, Scotty in the passenger seat beside her. They turned off Melrose, passed under the arched gates of the Harlequin Pictures lot, and stopped at the guard booth.
Justine said to the guard, “Justine Smith to see Danny Whitman.”
The guard ran his finger down a list on his laptop, did a visual match between the picture on Justine’s driver’s license and her face. He said her name into a phone, then turned back to her and said, “Take a right, then left on Avenue P. Keep going until you see 231 on the corner of Eleventh.” He waved her through.
Scotty said, “I’ve seen everything Danny Whitman has ever made. I saw his first film, Badger. Played the kid with the wild dogs? I knew he was going to take off.”
Justine flashed him a smile, slowed for a speed bump, took a left at the second intersection, and headed down a street lined by soundstages and two- and three-story white stucco buildings once used as studio homes for writers and actors, now mainly production and administration offices.
Her mind ranged as she drove, thinking about Jack, about Jack with Colleen, about how she was sure he’d lied about what had happened at lunch with Colleen. Justine also thought about the job she’d been offered, which wouldn’t be as good as the one she had now-except for one important detail. She wouldn’t be seeing Jack five days a week.
Scotty was looking at her. She recalled what he’d said. Excited about working with Danny Whitman.
“We don’t have a check yet, Scotty. But if we take the job, bet you ten bucks you’ll be happy when it’s over.”
She lifted the visor, downshifted, and said to Scotty, “He’s just starting this new film. Action-adventure, of course. The question is, will he get to finish it?”
“Shades of Green,” said Scotty. “I read about it. Spies and counterspies in the twenty-first century.”
“Okay, I’m impressed,” Justine said. “You do your homework.”
Justine’s mind flicked over this assignment. She wished she hadn’t told Jack she would do it. It could drag on. And the one thing you could absolutely count on with movie stars, it was going to get messy.
Please, God. Let this one be the exception to the rule. Let this one be easy.
“Sorry?” she said to Scotty. He was speaking again.
“So you missed the meeting. Jack was talking about Colleen Molloy. People seemed to like her.”
“She was adorable,” Justine said. “What number is that?” Scanning the nearly identical white buildings.
“ Adorable. Interesting word choice.”
“Genuine. Funny. Unaffected.”
“And you dated Jack too?”
“Boy, you’re quite the background checker,” Justine said. “There it is. On the corner. Now listen, Scotty, I don’t even know if we’re going to get this job, so just watch and listen.”
“I can do that.” He grinned. “But you didn’t answer my question.”
Justine braked the car at the curb, turned off the engine, and looked at the new guy on the team. He was young, regular features. Probably a little German, a little Brit, a little American Indian. Nice looking and kind of full of himself, but he was also curious and dogged. Good-natured too. He was going to be a fine addition to Private. As long as he stayed optimistic.
“Jack breaks hearts,” Justine said. “That’s what he does. I don’t even know if it’s his fault. Women want to fix Jack, and they think they can. I thought I could too.”
She reached into the backseat for her shiny leather handbag, opened it, and found a makeup kit in there. She took out her lipstick and a mirror, put fresh color on.
Scotty said, “So it is as Jack says. He was framed.”
“Jack is a lot of things, but he’s not a killer.”
Justine snapped her handbag closed and opened the car door. Scotty was saying, “But wasn’t he in the war? Wasn’t he a marine?”
CHAPTER 40
Scotty stood beside Justine as the door to the building marked 231 opened and a barefoot Johnny Depp look-alike introduced himself as Larry Schuster, Danny Whitman’s manager.
Justine shook Schuster’s hand and introduced Scotty. They stepped inside, the air smelling of pot, burned toast, and air-conditioner coolant.
Scotty looked around the spiffy modern office, hardwood floors, round chairs in bright colors, desktops off to one side of the room littered with fruit baskets, stacks of scripts, half-eaten breakfasts on trays, and opened gift bags with watches and other loot spilling out, cornucopias of excess.
