Murder on the Silver Screen Read online

Page 2


  “Thirteen boxes, not counting the one with the banners, with twenty-four tablets per box,” Callie said. “That means we have 312.” She glanced at me.

  “There are 311 names on the guest list for tomorrow.”

  “Ohmygod! Can I have the extra?” Brandon flushed with excitement.

  “Sure. If we get to keep it, you can pick it up after the announcement.”

  He looked at me like I’d slapped a cookie out of his hand. “What do you mean ‘after’? I’m going to be here for the announcement.”

  “The meeting is at eleven in the morning on a school day,” I reminded him.

  “What meeting?” Trixie asked me. “What announcement? It isn’t a party?” Her lip zipper hadn’t lasted long.

  “You don’t think I’m going to miss this, do you?” Brandon protested. “S Banks! In this theater! Announcing his new—”

  “He’s not going to be in this theater.” I slid a carton of tablets toward the teenager. “He’s going to be in some event space in Palo Alto. We’re just getting the live feed. You know that. You can watch it later online. After school.”

  He stared at me, stunned betrayal washing over his face.

  “Nora, who’s not going to be in the theater? Who are we talking about?” Trixie whispered loudly.

  Callie, holding an armful of tablets, gave Brandon a gentle prod with her elbow. “Come on. Let’s get started.”

  But even she wasn’t getting through to him. “Nora, you don’t understand. I have to be here. There’s no way to know what S Banks might do. He might be here as a hologram. He might be here as AR and these tablets might be the only ones in the world you can use to see him.”

  “Um, Nora? What’s a hollow gram? Is it like a telegram?” Trixie asked. “I didn’t think people used those anymore. Is it something new?”

  “This could be the most important announcement in the history of gaming!” Brandon was verging on the hysterical.

  “Gaming?” Trixie said. “Like backgammon?”

  “Well, I want no part of it,” Marty proclaimed. “Whatever this announcement is I predict nothing good will come of it.”

  I ignored them both, regarding the rapidly disintegrating Brandon. “Listen. I’ll make you a deal. I need a call from your mom. Not a text—a call. I have to hear her voice telling me it’s okay that you skip school tomorrow morning for this.”

  It was ridiculous how quickly hope surged back into him. “She’ll call! I promise! She will!”

  “I’m so confused.” Trixie slumped into one of the aisle seats.

  I saw a way to end her confusion and put Brandon’s nerd knowledge to work. “Let’s get cracking,” I said. “Brandon, while we’re at it, tell us everything we need to know about gaming, S Banks, and whatever the hell AR is.”

  “Oh!” Trixie sat up and fixed Brandon with her attention. “I just adore hearing about new things.”

  What we heard, at great length, was that gaming was the most important thing in the world, and that S Banks was the most important guy in gaming. I had a hard time swallowing this, because, duh, movies were the most important thing in the world. But I listened. After all, I’d signed us up for this gig.

  “AR stands for Augmented Reality,” Brandon eventually explained. By this time Marty had removed himself to the far end of the stage to hang a banner. He’d made quite a production of putting his earphones in to drown Brandon out.

  Callie, Brandon, and I had formed a production line of sorts. Callie unboxed each tablet, then passed it to Brandon, who fired it up and checked for the app that would allow it to receive data the next day. He then gave it to me to record the serial number and place it on a seat. Trixie supervised. Brandon talked the whole time.

  “Do you guys remember that game that was everywhere about two years ago? The one where you chased virtual alien invaders in the real world?”

  I vaguely recalled the craze. I’d been in LA at the time, managing Ted’s career and believing I was in a happy marriage.

  “I mean, sort of,” Callie said. “Was that the thing where you used to see people all over town, walking around in clumps, staring at their phones?”

  “Not clumps,” Brandon informed her. “Rebel alliances. In the game, Earth had been overrun by alien invaders, and only small bands of rebels were still free. We had to work together to overthrow the alien overlords.”

  “Through reasoned negotiations and diplomatic outreach?” I guessed.

  He stared at me. “By hunting them down and blasting them.”

  “Right.”

  Trixie’s head had been swiveling to keep up with the conversation. “Gee, that sounds fun!”

  Brandon went on. “The app used your GPS to know where you were, and based on your location and sometimes on other things, like time of day or how many other players were around you, you could see the aliens.”

  “What did they look like?” I asked, prompting Callie to send me a don’t-encourage-him look, but I was curious despite myself.

  “There were over four hundred unique characters,” Brandon told us. “Some were green and slimy, some were purple with tentacles—all kinds of things. Different weapons worked on different ones. They were so cool!”

  Trixie made a face. “I don’t know, Nora. Slimy and tentacles? Weren’t there any nice ones? And how do you see them, anyway? Were there film projectors hidden all over the place?”

  I couldn’t answer her, but I could give Brandon a prompt. “So you saw them when you looked through your phone?”

  “Right, the game used the camera on your phone. That’s the reality part. The augmented part is that sometimes you’d see a Thupolis in a doorway or a Vlaguard in a crosswalk or something.”

  Trixie blinked.

  “Like a cartoon?” I asked.

  “Like CGI,” he said. “Way more advanced than cartoons.”

  That was a shame. Trixie understood cartoons. I’d explain CGI to her later. Possibly with an editorial aside about how it had ruined movies.

  “Didn’t I hear that a bunch of people died while they were playing that stupid game?” Callie asked. “Like, wandering into traffic and falling off roofs and things?”

  “Oh, that’s terrible!” Trixie exclaimed.

  “A lot of that was urban legend,” Brandon said. “I don’t think anybody really died.”

  “I don’t know,” Trixie said. “Not all urban legends are fake. Look at me, for instance.”

  I laughed, causing the two non-ghosts I was working with to give me startled looks. Trixie slapped a hand over her mouth.

  I cleared my throat and changed the topic. “I wonder what the new thing will be.”

  Which set Brandon off on a fresh bout of fevered speculation. I gave Trixie a quick grin, but she was listening to the teenager again, eyes wide with wonder at this unimaginable world he was explaining.

  Right about that time I got my own little dose of technology, in the form of my phone chiming to remind me that I had an appointment. The four co-owners of the Palace were meeting, and I’d been invited to join them.

  “Hey, guys, you’ll have to finish up without me. I need to head over to Monica’s for the owners’ meeting.”

  Brandon’s head snapped up. “Will Tommy May be there?”

  “That’s why I’m going,” I told him. “I finally get to see the great and powerful Oz.” So far I’d only exchanged emails and texts with the tech genius. “It’ll be good to meet him in person.”

  A snort from behind me told me that Marty had come down from his ladder. “If he even is a person,” he said. “And not some sort of robot.”

  “Technically, he’d be a cyborg—” Brandon began. I left before he could explain the distinction.

  Chapter 3

  “What’s going on?” Robbie asked. “Catch me up. I don’t want everyone to think I’ve been hiding in a cave somewhere.”

  Robbie was my best friend and the reason I’d fled to San Francisco and the Palace six months ago. She’d offered me safe haven and welcome distraction when my almost-ex-husband Ted—movie star, liar, and world’s most charming rat—had left me for his gorgeous co-star and taken all the money with him.

  “You have been hiding in a cave somewhere,” I told her, speaking into my phone as I crossed the street. It was a chilly March afternoon, but I’d decided to walk to the owners’ meeting, which Robbie would attend via video call from LA. “You’re smack in the middle of pilot season, and nobody works longer hours than you during pilot season. How’s it all going?”

  Roberta Prowse was one of the most successful showrunners in Hollywood. She already had four hit shows on the air. I knew she was producing pilots for three more this season and I knew she’d written them all. So maybe she hadn’t been in a cave, but she’d been buried under a mountain of work. Three mountains.

  “I’ll tell you later,” she assured me. “In excruciating depth and accompanied by much wine.”

  Robbie was an established hit-maker, but Hollywood is relentless in its search for the new. Add to that the fact that Robbie was a no-longer-young woman of color, and you have a recipe for someone who has to work harder than just about anyone else I knew.

  “Suffice it to say, you’re so lucky to be out of this game,” she said.

  I wasn’t sure about that. I knew I was incredibly lucky that she’d given me the use of her guesthouse and a job doing something I loved while I figured out my next steps. But a long time ago, before I’d turned into Ted’s unpaid manager and agent, I’d wanted the life that Robbie now had.

  “I hate my life,” she groaned.

  “No, you don’t,” I told her.

  “No, I don’t. I just hate everyone who isn’t us.”

  “How about your daughter?”

  “Everyone who isn’t us or Tia.”

  “I’m sure we could expand that list, but I’m also sure we only have about three more minutes for this conversation.” It felt good, for once, to be the one cheering Robbie up. In the last few months she’d talked me off so many ledges that I’d lost count.

  “Ugh, you’re right. We’ll list the people I don’t hate later, over even more wine.”

  “Deal,” I told her. “Now, what do you need to know?”

  “You tell me,” she said. “Are there going to be any surprises at the meeting?”

  She and Tommy each owned one quarter of the Palace. The remaining two quarters were owned by Mitchell Black, a sitcom director down in LA, and Monica Chen, who ran a thriving cannabis shop on Divisadero, a few blocks away from the theater. The owners’ meeting would be held at her shop.

  “No surprises from me,” I told Robbie. “I’m not even sure why Tommy invited me.” Usually the owners met privately. “He was annoyingly mysterious about it.”

  “He’s like that,” she said. “He always acts like he’s Steve Jobs the day before the iPhone was announced.”

  I laughed. “I picture him more like a Vaudeville magician, making sure you’re looking at the stage while his partner picks your pocket.”

  “Is he going to pick my pocket?” Robbie asked.

  “You know him better than I do. I’ve been texting and emailing with him for weeks about his big webcast announcement, but it’s been all business. I really don’t have a sense of who he is as a person. Everything is shrouded in secrecy.”

  “Maybe he is Steve Jobs the day before the iPhone,” Robbie mused. “Any idea what he’s announcing in the webcast?”

  “According to Brandon it will be the most amazing game ever,” I said.

  “That narrows it down. What kind of game?”

  “If I knew that I’d design one myself and make a zillion dollars.”

  “Oh!” she exclaimed. “Do that! Then cut me in and we can both just sit around and watch Cary Grant movies all day.”

  “I’ll get right on it.” Like she’d ever just sit around, even for one day.

  “And speaking of a zillion dollars…” she said meaningfully.

  “I haven’t heard a thing.” I knew she was asking whether my extensive team of lawyers and accountants had managed to trace any of the money Ted had spirited away from all our joint accounts upon leaving me. “The lawyers just keep telling me to ‘sit tight’ and ‘hang in there.’”

  “I hate lawyers,” Robbie said supportively.

  “I’ll hate them less if they get back my life savings.”

  “True.” Then I heard someone in the background on her end, his voice sounding just a few notches past hysterical. “Um, Nora?”

  “Go,” I told her. “I’ll see you at the meeting.”

  The voice in her office reached screeching pitch as she hung up. I walked the rest of the way to Monica’s shop thinking about the gang I’d left squabbling companionably at the theater and the lineup of movies we had on tap for the week.

  Maybe I didn’t want Robbie’s life after all.

  The Potent Flower was a chic little boutique decorated in soothing colors and natural wood accents. If it weren’t for the affable security guard perched outside you might think it was the kind of place that dealt in overpriced organic home goods. But no, the guard was there because it stocked a bewilderingly extensive array of cannabis products. It was a legal pot shop, and a bustling one.

  Before going in I stopped for a moment to check my reflection in the window of the taqueria next door. I’d finally gotten around to finding a hairdresser in my new city, and I’d gotten rid of the last of my Hollywood blonde highlights—as well as a bit more gray than I wanted to admit. I was still a while away from forty, but the past six months had been rough.

  As I smoothed my hair and straightened my shoulders it occurred to me that I might have made a bit more of an effort for what amounted to a meeting of all of my bosses, but it was a little late for that now. Since leaving LA I’d gotten into the habit of a quick ponytail and a wardrobe that leaned heavily toward jeans and comfy sweaters. That would have to be good enough.

  I showed my ID to the guard and entered the long narrow space of the pot shop, spotting Monica in conversation with two people at a small display table near the back of the store. Monica was a forty-something Chinese American woman who wore yoga clothes every day of her life. I’d never known her to actually do yoga. She’d become one of my closest friends since I’d moved to San Francisco.

  She glanced up and waved me over. I maneuvered my way through the crowded store to them. There were more people than I would have expected to be browsing for pot on a Monday afternoon, and a line had formed for the three cashiers along the back wall.

  “Nora, so good to see you.” She said this while hugging me. Monica was a hugger. “This is Abby Newlyn and of course you know Tommy.”

  Of course I knew Tommy, but this was the first time we’d actually met. “Tommy, it’s so nice to meet you in person.”

  Nobody passing this guy on the street would have known he was a titan of tech. He was probably in his thirties but he dressed like a middle-schooler. Sneakers, jeans that at some point had been a shade of burgundy but were now faded to an indeterminate non-color, and a gray t-shirt with a gray zip-front sweatshirt over it. Generic white guy messy hair. Phone in his hand. Did nerds like him look like that because nerds in the movies looked like that, or was it the other way around? I didn’t really have time to ponder.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Nora.” He spoke with an intensity that was out of keeping with his slacker appearance. “There’s a lot we need to talk about.”

  “Oh, great.” Not great. He’d had every opportunity to talk to me over the past weeks and months. So why had he felt the need for a formal meeting with the partners to do so? If we were back in Hollywood I would have assumed he was one of those insecure guys who needed an audience for everything. Maybe those guys weren’t just in Hollywood.

  Monica glanced at her watch. “We’ve still got a few minutes before the call. Tommy and I were just talking to Abby about creating a custom tincture for him. Abby’s company makes amazing products. She’s a genius at blending cannabinoids.”

  “Oh, cool.” I smiled at the woman they’d been speaking with. I wasn’t entirely sure what cannabinoids were, but somehow I had no doubt that Tommy would want them customized.

  Abby waved a modest hand. “I don’t know about genius,” she said. “I just tinker around.” She looked to be in her early sixties, with a compact body and the short practical hairstyle of someone who probably swims for fitness. Her product line seemed to consist of tiny green bottles topped with eyedropper lids.

  “I’m definitely into it,” Tommy told her. “But the guy who’ll really want to talk to you isn’t—” He glanced toward the door, his face clearing as he found who he was looking for. “Oh, here he is. S!” He raised a hand in greeting.

  A ridiculously tall man stood at the front of the shop. He wore a creamy white crewneck sweater and white jeans tucked into black biker boots. His straight white-blond hair fell to his shoulders. He acknowledged Tommy’s greeting with a cool nod, pausing to take in the surroundings before starting toward us. He moved like a mid-level deity, with the assumption that people would part to give him way. They did.

  I don’t know why the deity impression came to mind. Just that morning we’d been discussing whether he was the antichrist. There was only one thing I did know for sure. Brandon was going to die. Because I was about to meet S Banks.

  Chapter 4

  “Brandon will literally die.”

  This was Callie’s reaction to the news that I’d met the famous S Banks. We’d both come to the Palace early the next day to make sure everything was ready for the webcast. At least I’d thought that getting there three hours before the event would be early, but when I’d arrived at eight that morning there had already been a line of eager geeks snaking around the block.