Fifty Grand

“Excuse me,” I said, quickly putting the lid back on the cream.

“Carly Simon… the Warren Beatty song. Ok, you’re drawing a blank, before your time, I guess, don’t worry about it. Uhm, what’s your name?”

“Maria.”

“‘Maria, I just met a girl called Maria,’ ” he sang in a thin baritone. It was a song I didn’t know, but I smiled encouragingly.

“I haven’t seen you before, when did you start?” he asked.

“I was here last night,” I said.

“Oh, God, you were? Saw me at my worst. Sorry about that. Honestly, I’m not that big of an asshole.”

“No, you were very polite to me,” I said.

“I was? Huh. Well, of course I was. Mind if I just brush my teeth? Paul’s coming in a minute.”

He began brushing his teeth while I made the bed.

“What do you think of the old abode?” he asked, foaming at the mouth.

“Very nice.”

“Yeah, I like it. Live here a lot of the year, ski season. L.A. the rest. That explains the headshots. Want to be clear about that. I’m not a nutcase. I mean, you never know. Veronica Lake in the coffee shop. Natalie Portman walking down the street.”

I had no idea what he was talking about.

He noticed my bafflement, spat, and rubbed a towel on his face.

“The headshots. On the wall. I rent this house out when I’m filming. You don’t know who’ll be staying here. Casting agents, whatever. Hence the headshots. It’s all contacts. That’s all it is. Talent is about five percent of it.”

“Si. Contacts. You meeting me, for example. My cousin is Salma Hayek, she’s looking for a costar,” I said.

His eyes widened, but before I could further extend the fib I broke into a smile. When he saw that I was kidding, he laughed out loud. A pleasant, infectious laugh that filled the room.

“Oooh, good one. I’m going to have to watch out for you, I can tell. Where are you from?”

“Yucatan.”

“The Yucatan, uh, that’s down somewhere, uhm, in the Central American area, I think, right?”

“Geography is not your strong suit,” I said.

“Wow, you’re totally unimpressed by me. Refreshing. I had a maid in L.A. who sold my pubes on eBay.”

I didn’t know the words pubes or eBay but I could tell from the creases around his eyes that he was being funny, so I gave him a smile.

“She got a hundred bucks. Not a lot, and I put in two fake bids to get the price up.” He leaned against the wall and shook his head. “It’s a crazy business. Crazy. I could tell you stories. I won’t, though, I know that guy you work for, uh, the one with the beard, keeps you on a pretty tight schedule.”

“Esteban.”

“Yeah, Esteban, Paul says he can get us just about anything we… well, never mind that. Have you time for one quick story?”

“Si, senor.”

“Jack, please.”

“Si, Senor Jack.”

“Just Jack, but anyway, so I’m on MI3 with Cruise. Two-page role. Probably doesn’t remember me. Been here a year now and not one invite to the fucking house, excuse my French. Fucking Kidman’s been there more than I have and she and Katie are like matter and antimatter… Lost my train of… Oh, yeah, so the grips tell me on MI3 that he has a special shredder in his trailer that vaporizes everything, burns everything to a crisp, you know, so no one can go through his garbage and sell it on the Net. What do you think of that? Paranoid, huh?” Jack said. His face fell. “Not much of a story, actually, was it?”

“It was a good story. Tom Cruise is very famous,” I said in slightly more broken English than I was capable of. Better if he underestimated me a little.

Jack sighed and looked unhappy.

Below us the front doorbell rang. “That’ll be the brains of the operation. I better go,” he said. “It was nice meeting you.”

“You too, senor,” I said.

I finished cleaning and when I went downstairs Paul was in the hall impatiently waiting for Jack. The man from last night. Paul Youkilis. Again Ricky’s file: 39, born in Austin, Texas, Ivy League, Jack’s manager and fixer, no known alibi for the night of the accident, hence suspect #1 or #2.

He was wearing a bright red shirt, yellow tinted glasses, black shorts, and flip-flops. He seemed dressed for a beach in Havana rather than a mountain town in Colorado. For some reason this sartorial choice filled me with annoyance.

“And who are you?” he asked, like Jack, failing to remember as far back as ten hours ago.

“Maria, I’m new. I work for Esteban.”

“New. I don’t like new,” Paul said.

Jack appeared, also in shorts and carrying a racket of some kind.

“All set?” Jack said.

Paul sighed. “I hate fucking squash. When are we going to get to go skiing? Isn’t this supposed to be Colorado? Where’s the fucking snow?”

Jack laughed. “Skiing? Skiing, you say? Nobody under forty goes skiing anymore, you old man.” He turned to me. “Ever been snowboarding, Maria? It’s the bomb.”

“No, senor.”

Jack punched Youkilis on the shoulder. “Anyway, it’s your fuckup, dude. Cruise makes his own snow. Get us invited to his house and we can ski all fucking day.”

“I’m trying man, I’m trying,” Paul said.

“Try harder. David Beckham’s coming for the weekend and he’s like huge all over Europe and Asia. I was just telling Maria here what big buddies me and Mr. Cruise are. Don’t show me up, brother.”

Paul examined me again. “When did you start working for Esteban?”

“Yesterday,” I said.

“Yesterday?” Paul muttered.

“Yeah, didn’t you read today’s paper, Paul? Looks like our old buddy Esteban is going to have a lot of new people on his staff,” Jack said.

“What are you talking about?” Paul asked.

“Fairview Post. Maria here very cleverly escaped the net,” Jack said, winking at me.

“I have no idea what you’re blathering about,” Paul muttered.

“As per fucking usual,” Jack muttered. He waved, blew kisses at Angela and me, and led Paul outside.

When they were gone, Angela called me over. “Maria, can you keep a secret?” she asked.

“Let me guess, you’re in love with Senor Jack,” I replied.

“With Senor Tyrone? No. A thousand times no, he’s skinny and has all those mirrors. Didn’t you see that he has pictures of himself on his bedroom wall? He’s crazy.”

“Ok, what’s the secret?”

“I wanted to tell you before, but I wanted to see if I could trust you.”

And because I did such a good job vacuuming carpets you reckon you can? I thought but didn’t say.

“What is it?” I whispered.

“When we get back to the motel tonight, we’re clearing out of here for Los Angeles. Victor has bought a Volkswagen bus and we’re driving to L.A. We’ve had enough of Esteban cheating us, paying us nothing, and now with the federales breathing down our necks, it’s time to go. We can get good jobs in L.A. Better jobs. And we won’t have to work for that fat thief.”

Ahh, so that’s what all the furtive looks were about.