“Good. One other thing. Kim, remember that knuckle extension I showed you?” She held out her arm obligingly. Everyone copied her. “Good. Now support your middle knuckle with your thumb and tuck the other fingers in, as though making a fist. Face your partner.” I moved Suze into position. “There’s a spot right in the middle of the breastbone where the nerve lies very close to the surface. Feel for it. Now put your knuckle on your partner’s breastbone and push.”
“Ow!”
“Shit!”
Everyone sprang apart rubbing their sternums.
“This is a very useful little tool. Appropriate for delicate situations, particularly those times when you have no wish to draw attention to yourself.” Appropriate. My mother would approve. I knew Therese would go home and practice that until it hurt to breathe. “Remember, the right tool for the right job. Even naked in an empty room you have plenty of tools. But the first tool you should practice is communication: Know what you want and don’t want, be prepared to communicate that clearly. Make sure your body and your words send the same message. Don’t apologize, don’t explain, don’t threaten. It’s all information they don’t need, and information is currency. It’s power. It’s a tool.”
They frowned. I thought for a minute.
“Jennifer.” Her jaw twitched. “When was the last time you got a wrong-number call?”
“A wrong number?”
“Yes. When?”
“About six months ago.”
“Remember how it went?” I picked up an imaginary phone and held it to my ear. “They called, and you picked up the phone and said… what?”
She picked up a phone, too. “Hello?”
“Hey, is this Annie?”
“Er, no.”
“Well, who is this?”
“Jennifer.”
“Is Annie there?”
“No, no one called Annie lives here.”
“Annie Contin. Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure, it’s just me and my husband.”
“And it’s not Contin?”
“No, I’m sorry.”
“Well what number is this?”
“555-2658.”
“Well, that’s Annie Contin’s number and I’m supposed to deliver a load of dog chow this afternoon. What’s your address?”
“We don’t have a dog. We have a cat. And… and you don’t need my address! ” and she slammed the imaginary phone down. Everyone was giving her sympathetic looks, the kind that in the South mean Dear Lord, what a moron. In the space of half a minute she had given a total stranger her name, her phone number, the fact that only two of them lived there, that she had a cat and no dog, and that she could be browbeaten without too much effort.
“Anyone think they can do better?”
“Yep.” Suze picked up the imaginary handset. “Hello.”
“Hey, is this Annie?”
“Nope, fuck off, asshole.” Slam.
“That’s always an option,” I said. “But similar to using a pile driver on a picture nail. Anyone else?”
Therese raised a phone to her ear. She smiled. I nodded. “Hello.” “Hey, is this Annie?”
“No. What number are you trying to reach?”
“Is this Annie? Annie Contin?”
“No. I believe you have the wrong number. Good-bye.”
“Excellent,” I said. “The less people know about you, the less they can hurt you. Think about it: who in your lives has the power to hurt you most, to wound you cruelly with a word?”
“My mother.”
“My husband.”
I nodded. “The people who know us best can hurt us the most because they know us, know how we think and what our vulnerabilities are. Any information you give a stranger can be used against you. Anything. Information is valuable. Don’t give it away.”
FIVE
I WOKE AT NOON ON SUNDAY WITH MY MUSCLES STEADY AND MY MIND GATHERING speed, cold and clear as a bobsled in its ice run. I got out of bed without having to think about it, called room service without referring to the number listings, and ordered breakfast—fruit and cheese—without a hitch.
The shower fittings were solid nickel-plated steel, heavy and cool. I twirled taps, watched the steam curl up from the tile floor. Even the water smelled different from the water in Atlanta; no heavy chlorine tang.
The water pressure was strong, the shower like a fizzing drill on my skin. I soaped thoroughly, found the light blue stain of small bruises on my inner upper arms, where the police officers had taken a grip, a scrape on my left shin and three tiny cuts on my right ankle, like paper cuts. I’d probably never know where they had come from.
Hard white tile, as in a hospital room. I increased the hot-water flow and my goose bumps went away.
My mother had moved me here while I was unconscious and had no say in the matter. But the Edgewater was a dark and damp place. Despite its moneyed smugness, the Fairmont was lighter and brighter, and my room accessible only via the door, not the water. So I’d stay. I didn’t need Suzanne anymore, so she could go.
I toweled my hair dry, smoothed moisturizer methodically on my back, and shivered—as I hadn’t for more than six months, since the nerves healed—when my hand ran over the bullet scar on the underside of my left arm.
AT THE breakfast table by the bar, Suzanne did her best to take it philosophically. “Well, I guess it’s good that you’re feeling better. I mean, it is good, definitely.” She looked around wistfully while I wrote her check, and indeed the suite looked beautifuclass="underline" thick glass tabletop gleaming in the sunshine, flowers vivid, Barber playing on the Bose.
I signed the check, handed it over. “I’m sorry about the lack of notice, but I’ve added a bonus.”
When she saw the amount, her pupils, clenched tight against the bright sunshine, expanded briefly. She folded it and put it in her pocket.
I stood. “Do you have more work lined up?”
“Oh, well, I work through an agency. It’ll be okay.” She touched her pocket unconsciously, and stood. “I’ll be okay.”
Even in Seattle I imagined it wasn’t too easy to get work as a private nurse with pink hair and a nose ring. I doubt my mother would have hired her if it hadn’t been a middle-of-the-night emergency.
She shrugged. “Well, hey, time to pack.” She gave the silk upholstered sofa one last pat and went into her room.
I set up my laptop on the table and opened Rusen’s spreadsheet, the employment information. It looked as though he’d been thorough.
No one knows for certain if it was Einstein who said, Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler, but it is a useful guiding principle. This wasn’t, as the police appeared to think, a one-off grudge or a prank. There had been trouble with my property for two years. The trouble had continued with Hippoworks Productions. The drugging incident meant more trouble. It seemed entirely possible that there was some kind of connection. Also, as William of Ockham said, pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate. And Kick had seen no strangers on the set.
Hippoworks LLC had two partners, Rusen and Finkel, and two permanent employees, both of whom worked at their Culver City office in California. For the Feral production, they employed about four dozen others on a contract basis. They were nonunion contracts, but at scale, with the exception of Sîan Branwell, who, being the star, had a few extra clauses and a bit more money. The end-date of her contract surprised me: less than a week away.
I scrolled to Kick’s information. Not much: addresses, references, a City of Seattle business license for Film Food, plus a notation that Rusen had checked her bond and insurance information and had two outside references on file. I opened a Web search bar and typed in KUIPER, VICTORIA K, and got several dozen hits, all relating to Film Food. Her website was rudimentary: a few menus, contact information, a professionally shot photo of Kuiper in white coat and hat, knife in hand and smiling self-consciously.