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“Shit!” Jackie said, as we drove through the gate and into the parking lot. “I hate being late. It always looks like diva bullshit.”
“We have a really good excuse,” I said.
She smiled and squeezed my hand. “Yes, we do,” she said, “but not the kind of thing I can explain to the director.”
“You want me to tell him?” I said.
“Let’s just not do it again,” she said. I raised an eyebrow at her and she laughed. “The late part, I mean,” she added.
The car coasted to a halt in front of the big roll-up doors, and I looked up to see the driver watching us with interest in the rearview mirror. Our eyes met, and he winked. “We’re here, Miss Forrest,” he said.
“Thank you,” Jackie said. She made a move for the door handle, but the driver was already out of the car and opening the door for her.
“I was told to say that everyone is gathering in the conference room,” the driver said as I climbed out. He nodded at the smaller metal door beside the large roll-up. “At the end of the hall, on the right,” he said.
“Everyone?” Jackie said. “Or just the cast?”
The driver shook his head. “I don’t know, miss,” he said. “They told me everyone—they didn’t tell me what that meant.”
Jackie bit her lip and frowned, then shook herself slightly. “Thanks,” she told the driver, rewarding him with a small smile.
He bowed his head ever so slightly. “All part of the service,” he said.
We went in through the door the driver had indicated, into a longish hallway painted a truly annoying light green color. On the right we passed two doors that opened onto the stage itself. On the left, the walls were decorated with smudges of paint, grease, and what I hoped was peanut butter. Midway we passed a large bulletin board festooned with notices, flyers, warnings from OSHA, and important safety regulations. Just beyond that we began to hear the buzz of conversation coming from the end of the hall. Jackie slowed her step and glanced at me. “You know what this means, don’t you?” she said in a low and worried voice.
“The jelly doughnuts will be all gone?” I said.
Her smile was a little bit mechanical. “This is it,” she said. “This is where they tell everybody about Patrick. And then they introduce my replacement.” She took her lower lip between her teeth and bit down on it. “Oh, shit,” she said. “I can’t do this. Not with Rob—with everybody watching and secretly gloating.”
I was sure she had started to say “Robert,” and stopped herself after one loathsome syllable, and I felt a surge of sympathy. One of the few bits of human behavior I do understand is the natural reluctance to let your enemies see you humiliated. And since Jackie was with me now, and the enemy was an annoying pimple like Robert, I felt it, too. But I didn’t see any way to avoid it, either.
So I put an arm around Jackie’s shoulders and drew her close. “They can’t replace you,” I said.
She shook her head. “I don’t see how they can avoid it. The insurance—”
“I will make them an offer they can’t refuse,” I said with my cheeks puffed out. It was not a very good imitation, and she did not give it a very good smile—but it was, at least, a smile.
“Thanks, Don Vito,” she said. She pulled away from me, straightened her shoulders, and put on a small and confident smile. “Let’s get it done,” she said, and she marched toward the door at the end of the hall. I trailed behind, wondering if she was right. Would they really fire her? And if so, what happened to me? I might convince her that she still needed my special kind of protection—but what if she decided to flee? Fly back to L.A., or even someplace far away, where the hypothetical Patrick couldn’t find her? Would I be invited to tag along to Sumatra, or Dubai, or Brisbane, wherever she ran to? I hoped so, but there was no way to know for sure.
Before I could decide, Jackie was there at the door to the conference room. She paused once again to compose herself, and then stepped through the doorway, with Dexter trailing behind like the tail to her comet.
Robert, Renny, and several others I didn’t recognize were already seated at the large oak table that ran down the center of the room. Another cluster of people stood at the far end, where a coffee urn crouched beside several very promising-looking pastry boxes.
Somehow, Jackie fought off the siren call of the doughnuts, and marched right down the table, so I followed along. Robert called from his seat on the opposite side. “Hey, Dexter!” he said as we passed, and beside him, Renny nodded. I waved, and joined Jackie at a seat that was as far from Robert as she could get and still be in the conference room. Happily for me, there was an empty chair beside hers, and I slid into it.
Jackie immediately started chattering with the woman on her right, apparently working to establish that she was confident, lighthearted, and completely in control of a perfect universe. I looked around the room and studied the people crowded in. The group at the coffee urn seemed to be mostly technical people. They wore clothing that was worn and functional, occasionally decorated with clamps, rolls of tape, and other arcane tools.
The group at the table would have to be actors. They were not as well dressed as the crew, but their grubbiness was calculated and looked expensive. Their frequent smiles revealed universally perfect teeth, and they all glanced furtively at one another, as if to make sure no one was sneaking up behind them with a machete. I didn’t see Deborah anywhere, and I couldn’t decide if that was good or bad.
A moment later, Debs came in behind Mr. Eissen and Captain Matthews, and then I knew: It was bad. Her face was set in its most rigid, stony, I-Am-a-Cop mask, the one that showed that she was ruled by discipline and duty and had never had any soft feelings in her entire life. But because I knew her so well, I could see that behind the mask she was seething, and as Detective Anderson followed her through the doorway, smirking, I understood why. This was a public firing squad, and the only real questions were how many bullets, and what caliber.
Eissen went straight to the head of the table, and Captain Matthews followed right behind, with only one wistful glance at the doughnuts to show us that he was still just a cop. Debs was one step behind him, and Anderson brought up the rear, locking his eyes onto Jackie with a kind of knowing, superior leer on his face.
Eissen sat down in the only empty chair; Matthews looked for another and didn’t see one, but his glance fell on Deborah, and he frowned at her before turning back around to stand at Eissen’s elbow, in a posture that showed he really preferred to remain standing.
“Thank you for being prompt,” Eissen said quietly, and the room fell silent so quickly and completely that I wondered whether I had gone deaf. “I know you are all eager to get to work.…” He gave a very thin smile to show that this might be taken as a joke, but nobody laughed. “So I will try to keep this brief.” He glanced up at Matthews, and then stared down the length of the table toward Jackie, and I felt her stiffen slightly. “It has come to my attention that we have a … situation,” he said, and he paused to tear his eyes away from Jackie and look around the room before going on. “Miss Forrest has received a number of very credible threats on her life.”
Even Eissen’s icy presence couldn’t prevent the immediate mutter of shock and wonder that blew through the room, and he waited it out, cold blue eyes fixed on Jackie. She just smiled, outwardly unworried and carefree, and my opinion of her acting ability went up two notches.
