mission, and there were a lot of angry people gathered on either side of the steps holding up signs. The picture quality wasn’t good enough to read most of them, but the one I could make out read, MARRIAGE IS BETWEEN TWO HUMANS.
After I finished I went back to my room to brush my teeth and take one final look through the legal papers, and then I headed down to the lobby to wait for Kobe. I was pleased to see that David hadn’t arrived yet. Having been reamed out for not behaving in a professional manner, I felt that being ready before him was a small victory.
He showed up a few minutes later looking flush and plump. Yep, he’d stoked up on blood. He held his briefcase in one hand and a broadbrimmed Panama hat in the other. Not a minute later Kobe came in the front door. David put on his hat, and we headed to the car.
The rush hour traffic was intense, but we stayed on city streets and arrived at the IMG forty-five minutes before the arbitration was set to begin.
Junie took us in hand the minute we entered. “Coffee? Blood?” she asked.
“Coffee,” I said, and David waved her off.
“I’ve dined.”
It was an interesting word choice. The older vampires of my acquaintance, like my foster liege Meredith Bainbridge and Shade, said
Junie led us to the other end of the office and threw open silver-chased double doors to reveal a gigantic conference room with heavily treated glass that made the sunlight look like it was being filtered through layers of seawater. Pizer was waiting for us, wearing a suit of coppery brown.
He gave me a grin that exposed his fangs. “You’re in the news.”
David made a face. “I’m not surprised. There must be thousands of other businesses in this city, but people only seem to care about the damn movie business.” A new thought intruded, and he gave Pizer a thunderous frown. “I sincerely hope no one in this office leaked. We can’t function if the parties don’t have confidence in our discretion and impartiality.”
Pizer, still smiling, waited for David to finish his rather pompous speech, then he said, “Oh,
“What?” I pulled my voice back down. “Me? Why?”
A newspaper appeared from behind Pizer’s back. There was a big photo spread of me on Montolbano’s arm entering Ketchup. It was an improvement over the last time I’d been the picture above the fold. Then I’d been flashing my breast in the
The headline screamed: “Illegal Affair?” I scanned the opening lines of the story: “There have been rumors of problems between Kate Billingham and Jeff Montolbano. Now there may be fire to add to that smoke. Last night Montolbano was seen at one of LA’s hot spots with a beautiful mystery woman who turned out to be Linnet Ellery, superstar lawyer at Ishmael, McGillary and Gold.”
I liked the beautiful part. Usually I got described as cute. I even kind of liked the mystery part, but I didn’t like getting cast in the role of home wrecker. “No stranger to controversy, Ellery was associated with a series of grisly murders…” Before I could read further David snatched the paper out of my hands.
“Oh, dear God.” The words emerged like a groan. “Just what we need. Linnet, how do you manage to end up in these … these … situations?”
“Me? How is this my fault? You’re the one who agreed to have dinner with Montolbano. We could have done room service in your cabana.”
Pizer took back the paper. I snatched at it, but they were passing it well over my head. I stepped back, fuming.
Pizer shrugged. “I don’t see the problem. More ink for IMG is never a bad thing.”
The paper went back to David.
“And that is precisely the problem, Hank … that you don’t see a problem. I think you’ve been in this environment for too long.”
I watched the newsprint float by as it went back to Pizer.
“The reason I’m on the West Coast is because I’m not a fossil,” Pizer replied.
“The senior partners are not going to like having an associate involved in a media circus, and it creates the appearance of bias.”
Pizer wasn’t backing down. “If they don’t want press, then they shouldn’t have opened an office in Los Angeles and taken on a high-profile industry case.” I thought Pizer had a point, and I nodded in agreement. That had David rounding on me.
“Linnet, you need to stay in the background. Okay?”
“I just went out to dinner,” I said. “Short of wearing a burqua or never leaving my room, I’m not sure what more I can do.”
“Well, just…” David looked frustrated. “Just let me take point in this opening session.”
“Fine,” I snapped.
“And don’t talk to Montolbano. Now, could we please get back to the case,” David said, and he sounded really exasperated.
Pizer was still grinning. Clearly he loved to tweak David. “Sure. I assumed you want to start with a general meeting, so I had all the parties come in.”
David nodded. “Good, yes, excellent.”
“Do you want them brought in one at a time or in a big scrum?” I asked.
David considered, then said, “Bring them all in together. How they interact with each other should be interesting, and it may help us start to get a fix on these people.”
“Remember, they are actors,” Pizer warned. “They’ll show you what they think you want to see.”
The idea that a bunch of actors could fool him had David assuming the full-on vampire. “They can try,” he said. “I’ve had some experience with human subterfuge.”
Pizer shook his head, but said nothing. He went away to summon the various parties. While he was gone, assistants hurried in with coffee, tea, soft drinks, and a platter of donuts. Yellow legal pads and pens were arranged on the big oval table.
“Can you be charmed, bedazzled, whatever you want to call it by the Alfar?” I asked. “My foster father warned me about them, but I thought that had to do more with my being female.”
“You’d be correct. Magic or whatever the Alfar use isn’t effective against vampires. It seems to only work on humans and other Alfar.”
“But you were human once,” I argued.
“But we’re not any longer,” came the short answer. It did rather say it all.
Jeff Montolbano ambled in and gave me one of the famous lopsided smiles that had devastated audiences for ten years. He was dressed casually in khaki slacks, a polo shirt, and a sports jacket.
I sidled over to him. “Well, you fed the beast, but I really don’t appreciate being made a prop.”
He looked contrite. “That really wasn’t my intention. I thought they’d be more interested in your colleague.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “And are you and your wife really having marital difficulties?”
“No,” he said. “We’re just trying to get some ink. This weekend you’ll hear about her being seen with Mark Wiley on the set of her movie in Italy.”
“Under the theory that there’s no such thing as bad publicity?” It came out more acerbic than I’d intended.
“That’d be it.”
We had to break it off because people began entering the room. Up until now these people had just been names in the documents, so I was interested to meet them.
