He left the darkroom and went into the entertainment room of his house. There, on the shelf with the rest of his CDs, was a copy of Kingsley’s solo effort. He opened it and ripped out the insert again, unfolding it and going to the right lower corner.
Special thanks to Laura Best for soprano saxophone on South Island Blur.
That was far too much of a coincidence to be a mere coincidence. Laura Best had to be the cute redhead in the Cabriolet. But he had to have confirmation.
He picked up the phone and dialed a number from memory. It rang three times and then a female voice answered.
“Department of motor vehicles,” she said. “This is Julie.” Julie Barstow was one of the managers of the North Hollywood DMV office. The two of them had had an under the table business relationship for more than ten years now.
“Hey, Jules,” he said. “Paul Peterson here.”
“Paul,” her voice said, giving no inflection. “What can I do for you today?”
“I need you to run a license for me and give me the particulars on the RO.”
“Shoot,” she said, not having to mention that the service he was requesting was going to cost him fifty dollars cash, delivered within two days if he ever wanted to employ her services again.
“California personalized plate,” he said. He then proceeded to spell it out in police department phonetics. “Sam, Adam, X-ray, Mary, Sam, Tom, Robert.” As he spoke, he heard the sound of her fingers tapping on a computer keyboard.
“Gimmee just a second,” Julie told him. “Okay. Here it comes. The RO is Laura Lynn Best. The car is a ninety-three Cabriolet, first registered in October of 1992. The registration puts the address of the vehicle at nine-five-zero-three Nottingham Lane in LA. There is no loan company listed on the title, so someone paid it off at the time of purchase.”
“Perfect,” Paul told her. “What can you tell me about the RO?”
“That’ll cost you another fifty, Paul.”
“Understood,” he said. “Give it up, hon.”
“Hang on,” she said. There was the sound of her fingers tapping the keyboard again, a pause, a few more taps, another pause, and then: “Okay, here we go. Laura Lynn Best. Date of birth is April 11, 1965. She’s five-three, one hundred and twenty pounds allegedly, red hair, green eyes. No moving violations on record. License is in good standing. Address has recently been updated to that Nottingham Lane address. Prior to that, her address was 6312 Parkland Lane, number 213 in Burbank.”
“Excellent,” Paul said. “Are you able to look at her DMV photo?”
“No,” she said. “We haven’t been digitized yet.”
“A pity,” he said, “but that’s okay. You’ve given me what I need.”
“Always glad to help,” she told him.
“I’ll be by tomorrow sometime with a little envelope for you,” he promised.
“I’ll be expecting you,” she said.
And with that, they disconnected the call.
Paul hung up the phone and lit a cigarette. He smiled as he smoked. There was a just a little more grunt work to be done on this job. He just needed to stake out Kingsley’s pad a few more days and follow Laura Best around until he got a good shot of her outside of her car. It wouldn’t hurt to follow Kingsley as well and get a few more shots of his new appearance.
Experience told him that would not take more than a day or two.
And once he had the shots of the two of them in hand, he knew his contacts at the Watcher would pay him at least two grand for the photos and another grand for the information.
It wasn’t as good or as lucrative as working for Mindy Snow, but it paid the bills.
Chapter 12: Into the Black
Santa Clarita, California
April 12, 1993
As a limited liability company, KVA Records was not required by law to have a governing board in order to conduct business. Under the terms of the operating agreement that had been drawn up back in the beginning, Celia, Jake, Bill, and Pauline were the official members of the company and each had equal say in the decisions that were made and would share equally in any profit that was enjoyed. They were not a board, as much as Greg (who officially held no power in the company even though it had been his money that had funded Celia’s share) would have liked to have called them that.
“Can we at least call this a board meeting?” he pleaded as the four official members, two spouses who held a considerable interest in what occurred here, and Jill the accountant all sat down at the conference room table in the KVA Studios building.
“Sure, Greg,” Pauline said soothingly. “We can call it a board meeting if you’d like.”
“And use Roberts Rules of Order to conduct it?” he asked hopefully as well.
“Well...”
“No Roberts Rules of Order,” Jake vetoed, shaking his head. “We’re all friends here, right?”
“We are,” Pauline said.
“Then we should just be able to talk like friends, right?” Jake asked.
“You’re no fun,” Greg said with a pout.
Jake chuckled, knowing the actor was not serious. Greg was actually in a decent mood these days. His wife’s album was selling like wildfire and was currently one of the most popular albums in the nation. She was getting tons of airplay and was frequently in the media. All of this attention had brought Greg himself back into the public consciousness as something other than the star of the miserably failed The Northern Jungle flick. A few movie offers had actually trickled in over the past month—invitations to audition for up and coming projects that were not spoofs or slapstick. So far, none of those offers had interested him, but it was nice to be asked.
“All right,” said Jill once everyone was seated and settled in. “How about we get started here?” Jill herself looked pretty much the same as she’d always looked. As a full-blooded Japanese woman, she possessed those magical genes for longevity and agelessness that her race was known for. Though she was exactly the same age as Jake—they had been born on the same day and had always jokingly referred to each other as twins—she looked to be in her early twenties instead of almost thirty-three. Her black hair was cut short, falling well above her shoulders and she had a pair of thick glasses on her face. Her clothing was a conservative pantsuit and arm-covering blouse, both in dark colors. She had a leather briefcase open before her. Though she was not one of KVA’s members, they paid her family’s CPA firm in Heritage, California quite handsomely for Jill to be their full-time accountant and financial manager.
“Let’s do it,” Jake said.
“I’m ready,” agreed Celia, who sat next to Greg and across from Jake and the Nerdlys.
“She really should have a gavel to bang for this part,” Greg said.
“I have a little bit of a hangover today,” Pauline said sourly. “I’d just as soon there be no gaveling, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Prude,” Jake told her.
“I am not,” she countered.
“Then perhaps you’d care to describe the details of your most provocative sexual encounters with Obie?” said Nerdly. He too was in a good mood of late. They had finally finished Obie’s new album and he and Sharon had been released from their semi-indentured servitude.
“In your dreams, Bill,” Pauline told him.
“I believe you might be correct in that assumption, Pauline,” Sharon said. “It is my understanding that Bill has always had a sexual attraction to you and I sometimes suspect that when he awakens in the night with an erection and wants to engage in marital relations with me, that he has, in fact, been dreaming of you.”