He spun up the flatscreen’s power, hit the wireless air-net key, and logged via an encoded sig into the Net Force mainframe again. He had VR gear in his bag, but he didn’t like to do VR work in a public place, too many people, no telling who might decide to come up and swipe your luggage while you were sensory deprived and deep in scenario. Probably they’d be okay here in the VIP lounge, but no sense in developing bad habits. He’d just have to do it the old-fashioned and boring way, using the vox controls and hand-jives, a pain, but there it was.
Drayne had the air conditioner going full blast in the RV, and Ma and Pa Yeehaw had unshipped the little car they towed behind the RV and gone into town to do a little bar hopping or whatever, while Drayne mixed up a new batch of the Hammer. He’d hold off on adding the final catalyst until he got back to town. Now was a good time to check out the new safe house, and nobody would be looking over his shoulder there while he did the final mix. Once the clock started running, he’d send one of the bodyguards to FedEx with the packages, and that would be that, another forty-five thousand into the secure e-account, and wasn’t life beautiful?
He grinned. I wonder what the poor folks are doing now?
Mae Jean Kent was an impressive-looking woman, Michaels noted, oozing sexuality, and however powerful her lungs might be, they were certainly augmented with a major pair of headlights, double-D, at least. Toni had been quick to tell him these weren’t real, but nonetheless…
She was beautiful, blond, tanned, fit, and wore a halter top and hip-hugger pants and sandals. She also wore big sunglasses. She agreed to meet them at some local restaurant that was apparently the place to meet locally, and she was constantly waving at people who passed the outdoor table at which she, Michaels, Jay, and John had been situated.
“Hi, Muffy! Hey, Brad! I’m sorry, Alex, what was that again?”
“Ms. Kent—”
“Oh, please, call me MJ, everybody does!”
Michaels guessed her age at thirty, judging from her hands, but she was acting more like eighteen. Part of the youth culture out here, where you might be over the hill at twenty-five.
“MJ. So tell me about this beach picture.”
“Oh, it was a terrible shoot! First thing was, Todd — that’s Todd Atchinson, the director? — was having a major crisis and he ran out of Paxil and was a bear to work with. He just kept yelling at everybody. Then Larry — that’s Larry Wright — had a major fight with his boyfriend, he’s gay, such a waste of a perfect bod, you know? Anyway, Larry was so depressed he just moped around like an old hound dog. And George — I was so sorry to hear that he died, so sorry, but he was a major doper, major — kept getting a, you know, a woody every time we shot a scene together, and they had to shoot around it because his bathing suit was, you know, bulging all the time!” She giggled and took a deep breath, showing off the results of what must have been expensive plastic surgery.
Michaels wished Toni were here, so she could see just how vapid and unattractive this woman was, despite her looks and attempt at what she thought passed for sophisticated animation.
Michaels glanced at Howard, who kept a straight face but offered no help. Jay seemed entranced by the rise and fall of MJ’s hooters under the barely-able-to-hold-them halter top.
“Is there anything you can think of that might have a connection to something called Thor’s Hammer?”
She turned and waved at somebody passing the tables. “Hey, Tom, baby! How are you!” She made a kissy face at Tom baby.
Michaels caught the hint of a grin on Howard’s face, but when he looked closer, the grin vanished.
“MJ?”
“What? Oh, no, I don’t remember anything about a sore hammer.”
“Where was the movie shot?” Jay asked. Apparently his breast-induced trance was not as deep as Michaels thought.
“Where?”
“Yes. The location.”
She glanced upward, as if expecting the answer to be written on the underside of the big umbrella sheltering their table. Then she looked at Jay and gave him her full-wattage smile: “Malibu,” she said. “On the beach.”
Michaels got the gist of Jay’s question and followed it up. “Anything unusual about the location?”
“Unusual? No, I don’t think so. It was kind of like a private beach, Todd knew some of the owners who had houses right next to it, so they roped it off for the shoot. A lot of tourists came by every day and asked for autographs between setups. I have a lot of fans.”
“I heard a critic say your performance in Scream, Baby, Scream was first-rate,” Howard put in. He smiled.
Michaels looked at Howard. Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.
“Really? I tried hard to get some subtext into that, but the script was, you know, just full of major problems. Writers just don’t understand what a proper vehicle should be like for actors. They are all hacks out here.”
Probably used too many big words, Michaels thought. Those two- and three-syllable ones must be killers.
That was unkind, Alex. This is Hollywood, remember, it’s all about what looks good. It’s not her fault how it works.
“Well, we thank you for your time, MJ,” he said. “You’ve been a great help to us.”
“Hey, no problem. I’m glad to cooperate with the government any way I can. If you get a chance to talk to the IRS, tell them to quit auditing me, okay?” She flashed the smile, inhaled deeply, and then turned to wave again. “Barry! How are you!”
Waiting for the parking lot attendant to fetch the rental car, Howard said, “Well, that was helpful in a major way, you know?”
Michaels said, “And when did you see Scream, Baby, Scream, John? Dial it up on your room cable last night?”
“Just my bit to keep the conversation moving,” he said. “Besides, I didn’t say I’d seen it, I said ‘a critic said.’ That would be our staff critic here. I was just taking Gridley’s word for it.”
“Well, I suppose we should go try Larry,” Michaels said. “And hope that he and his boyfriend have patched things up since Surf Daze.”
“Or Todd,” Howard said. “Maybe he’s gotten his Paxil refilled.”
“Maybe we don’t need to,” Jay said.
Michaels and Howard looked at him.
“The inscription in the capsule said the grandchildren would know where to find him. I think MJ might have told us.”
“The beach at Malibu,” Michaels and Howard said together.
“Big-time drug dealer could afford to live there.”
“It’s a long stretch of coastline,” Howard said. “Hundreds of homes.”
Jay said, “But movie shoots in cities have to have all kinds of permits. I can access the records for the surfer pic and find out exactly where the location was. That would narrow it down to a handful of houses. We could check ownership records on those, eliminate some of them.”
Michaels said, “That’s good thinking, Jay.”
“I didn’t think you were paying full attention to your work back there,” Howard said.
“Silicone doesn’t do it for me,” Jay said. “Besides, she’s much smarter in her movies, which ain’t saying much.”
“Okay, get on-line and find out what you can.”
“One other thing,” Jay said. “I got a blip during the interview.” He waved the flatscreen, looked at Howard. “Several witnesses, a couple of them nuns, attest that Brett Lee was in the nursing home yesterday when you were being shot at. It couldn’t have been him.”
“Damn,” Howard said. “Then who?”