for me, holding a clipboard. She had impossibly pale skin, a neck that looked like she'd stretched with tribal rings, and a model's expression of perennial boredom.
'Mr. Conner is out back. Follow me, please.'
She led me across a house-size foyer and through a sitting room and a set of double doors open to the expansive backyard. Stopping at the threshold, she waved me on. Maybe she'd ignite in direct sunlight.
Keith bobbed on a yellow inner tube in the middle of the pool, a black-bottomed monstrosity interrupted by a confusion of waterfalls, fountains, and palm trees sprouting from island planters. He said, 'Hi, asshat,' and started paddling in. Then he shouted past me, 'Bree, the pool bar's out of flaxseed chips. Think you can get them restocked?'
The waif jotted a note on her clipboard and disappeared.
Two rottweilers frolicked on the far lawn, all fangs and cords of saliva. Knotted ropes--of course--abounded. To my right, a woman reclined on a teak deck chair, filling out a yellow one-piece and reading a magazine. Her blond hair, turned almost white by the sun, tumbled down around her face in a Veronica Lake peekaboo. She looked far too refined for the company, and too old--she was at least thirty.
Keith collapsed onto the chair next to her and lit up, of all things, a clove cigarette. I hadn't seen one since Kajagoogoo clogged the airwaves.
'Meet Trista Koan, my lifestyle coach.' Keith set a hand on her smooth thigh.
She unceremoniously removed it. 'I know. The name's a laffer. My parents were hippies and shouldn't be held accountable.'
'What's a lifestyle coach do, exactly?' I asked.
'We're working on reducing Keith's carbon footprint.'
'I'm gonna save the whales, dawg,' Keith said. His teeth appeared seamless; the sun off them was squint- inducing.
My expression made clear I was missing the connection.
'L.A. is all about environmentalism, right?' he said on the inhale.
'And hair restoration.'
'So we gotta get people thinking that way everywhere.' Inspired, he swept his arm to indicate, presumably, the world beyond the park-size backyard. The grand gesture was undercut by the jet trail of clove smoke left behind. 'It's about constant awareness. I was all into the electric-car thing first, right? Even ordered a Tesla Roadster. Clooney ordered one, too. They inscribe your name on the sill--'
'But the problem is . . .' Trista said, keeping him on track.
'The problem is, electric cars still plug in to the grid and suck energy. So then I bought some hybrids. But they still use gas. So I switched to'--a glance to Trista--'what're they called?'
'Flex-fuel vehicles.'
'Why not take a bus?' I thought it was pretty funny, but neither he nor Trista laughed. I said, 'Whales, Keith. This started with whales.'
'Right. They're using this high-intensity sonar, it's like three hundred decibels--'
'Two thirty-five,' Trista corrected.
'You know how many times louder that is than the level that'll hurt humans? Ten.'
'Four point three,' Trista said, with faintly disguised irritation. I was beginning to understand her role better.
'That's as loud as a rocket blasting off'--he paused to look at Trista, but evidently he'd gotten this one right--'so it's no wonder whales are beaching themselves. Bleeding out their ears, around their brains. The sonar also gives them, like, air in their bloodstreams--'
'Emboli,' I said, figuring Trista might need a break.
'--so imagine how much other sea life is killed we don't even know about.' He was waiting for my reaction with an almost sweet eagerness.
'The mind boggles.'
'Yeah, well,' he said, as if that were something to say. 'So I'm a dumb-ass actor. I'm twenty-six, and I make more money in a week than my dad made his whole miserable working life. It's a miracle, and I know I don't deserve it, because no one does. So what? I can still tune in, make a difference. And this movie's really important to me. A passion project.' He looked to his life coach for approval, which Trista withheld.
He'd leapfrogged our animosities, momentarily, for a pitch and some pious confabulation. He was using me to work out his new material, the green-friendly repackaging of Keith Conner, which would give him the edge on the red carpet, where it really mattered. But now playacting was over and it was time to get down to business. Sensing this, Keith held out his arms. 'So what the hell are you doing here, Davis? Aren't we suing each other?' He flashed his camera-ready smile. 'How's that going, by the way?'
'I'm here to take possession of the house.'
Trista didn't look up, but she touched a fist to her lips. Keith smirked and beckoned for me to talk.
'I have something of yours.' That got his attention. I removed a DVD, a matching one from my office, and held it up.
'What is it?'
'It looks like a disc, Keith,' Trista said.
I liked her as much as I liked looking at her.
'Yeah, but what's on it?' he asked.
'I don't know,' I said. 'Didn't you have someone leave it for me?'
'Me send you a DVD? Davis, I haven't thought of you since you got kicked off my movie.' He gestured around, appealing to an invisible supporting cast. 'They said you were a little nutty, man, but hell.' His stare hardened. 'What's on it? Is this some bullshit from that paparazzi ass-suck who's stalking me? You here to fucking extort me?'
Maybe he was a better actor than I gave him credit for. 'No.' I flipped the case to him. 'It's blank.'
Trista was finally interested enough to set the magazine down on her tan knees.
Keith was getting worked up. 'What'd the delivery guy say?'
I rolled with it. 'That he was told to bring it by, since you were shooting pickups in New York.'
'No, I've been right fucking here, cranking preproduction on The Deep End. It's a race against time, man.'
I said, 'The Deep End?'
'I know,' Trista said. 'Keith's manager's title. We had to agree to it before Keith came on board and got us the green light.'
I said, 'Producer-lifestyle coach? That's an unusual hyphenate, even for this area code.'
Keith said, 'She's hooked in with the environmental group behind the production company. She knows everything about this stuff, so they flew her in as a, you know . . . resource.'
The picture resolved, their relationship finally becoming clear to me. Trista's job was a new version of my old job. Monitor Keith so he didn't get caught looking too hypocritical or saying anything too stupid. I'd rather push a boulder uphill in Hades, but maybe that's why I was teaching screenwriting in the Valley and Trista was reading glossy magazines next to an Olympic-size tiki pool.
Keith tossed the jewel case back over, giving me a nice clean set of prints. I wanted them on record in case he vanished behind locked mansion doors or hopped a carbon-free jet to Ibiza.
'I wouldn't send you shit.' He leaned forward. 'Not after you assaulted me.'
For the thousandth time, I replayed what I'd reconstructed of the phone conversation between him and Ariana. I pictured the words going in, straight to the pit of her gut. Everything that had followed. Until I lowered my guard and took a step back, I didn't realize how badly I'd wanted him to go for me so I could knock in those shiny teeth. I wanted it all to be his fault.
I slid the DVD case into my back pocket, careful not to smudge it too much with my own fingerprints. 'Don't get worked up, Keith. I'd hate to see you lose another fight with a countertop.'
He nodded at the double doors behind me, where Bree had materialized, a clipboard-wielding apparition. 'She'll see you out.'
Chapter 17
An officer accompanied me up to the second floor, where Sally Richards sat at a desk, intently focused on her
