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“I really don’t want you to worry. Good night, and look for your bonus, come Monday.”
FRIDAY
Chapter 23
The Starbucks barista seemed to know Ben Marcus, at least by sight and coffee preference, calling out his order before he reached the cash register. Hidden in a corner, Tess watched him, happy for the chance to observe an unwary Ben. He was always so on during their encounters – picking even his most sarcastic words with care. But maybe that was Ben’s way of speaking to everyone. Although she couldn’t hear what he was saying to the peppy young barista, Tess could tell from his expression that he was his usual arch self. If he was nervous about this meeting, it wasn’t apparent. Last night, when Tess had called him on her own phone for a more substantive conversation, he had been caught off guard and had even stammered in a place or two. But in the intervening nine hours since he agreed to this meeting, he would have had time to think about what he wanted to say, to shape his story. He was, after all, a professional storyteller.
He doctored his mocha with extra sugar, then plopped down in the upholstered chair opposite Tess.
“Thanks,” he said, although neither his tone nor his expression indicated gratitude. “For meeting me here, instead of the office. There’s not much privacy there.”
“Is that how Greer found out you were sleeping with Selene?”
He seemed surprised that she was so direct – and a little relieved. Ben was probably used to meetings that began with more smoke blowing and ass kissing.
“I suppose so,” he said, after a beat. “I never really knew how Greer found out. She was sneaky that way.”
“And she used the information to force you to get her – well, which job? She was promoted twice, first to the production assistant’s job in the writers’ office, then to Flip’s assistant. At what point did she play the Selene card?”
“Greer wasn’t that direct.” Ben’s characterization surprised Tess; she thought the girl had bordered on tactlessly blunt at times. Perhaps she was different with her bosses. “She asked for my help, yes, but it was never a strict quid pro quo. Look, no one cares who Selene sleeps with.”
“If that’s so, then who’s keeping the tabloids in business?”
That earned a wan smile from Ben. “I mean, no one on the production cares about Selene’s love life, as long as she shows up for work on time. Underage drinking, breaking the drug laws of this country? That makes us nervous, because if she gets busted, we’re not insured for that. But she can fuck anyone she wants to.” His own words seemed to give him pause. “As long as it’s someone or something that can give informed consent.”
Tess allowed herself the luxury of thought, of not coming back at Ben too quickly with another question. She had the same sensation that she had when speaking with Flip. She was being tricked, diverted – but from what? Alicia had suggested that Ben was Greer’s protector, and Tess was curious about that dynamic. But the fact that Ben was sleeping with Selene was of interest to her because it meant he might have information that would confirm whether Selene was the source of the problems on the set. Why hadn’t Flip asked his old friend what he knew about Selene, tried to use him as a double agent? Certainly, Ben’s loyalties to Flip and the production had to trump this – Tess groped for a noun but found none. Relationship? Fling? Soulless carnal encounter? She settled, in her head, for thing.
“No one cares who Selene sleeps with,” she repeated. “Does anyone care who Ben sleeps with?”
Bingo. He flushed, dropped his eyes to his coffee, began jiggling his foot as he had the other day.
“I would be really grateful,” he said, “if you didn’t mention this to Flip. Or Lottie, but only because she would tattle to Flip. I could give a fuck what Lottie thinks about my extracurricular activities.”
“But you don’t want Flip to know? I thought guys talked freely about such things.”
“We’ve been friends a long time, since grade school. It gets complicated. Do you have friends like that?”
Tess shrugged. Of course she did, everyone did. But she wanted Ben to keep talking, building up enough momentum to run into some inadvertent truths.
“I love the guy. Love. We’ve been there for each other all our lives. Look, he has the name, the co
“Would he really care about you and Selene? He keeps telling me how happily married he is.”
Ben’s jiggling foot, the tapping toe of denial, began working the floor beneath the table. “Flip got married at twenty-three, to his college girlfriend. And he’s determined to stay married to her, no matter what. It’s like a religion with him, not repeating his father’s mistakes. But that’s not to say it’s easy, saying no, especially when he has a partner, me, who’s free and unfettered. Usually, he eggs me on, encourages me to be a wild man, then asks for all the details. But every now and then, he makes an arbitrary ruling that someone is off-limits. And the minute he does that…”
Tess faked sympathy. “That’s the one person you have to sleep with. So Flip told you to stay away from Selene?”
“Yeah.”
“Is that why you’ve been so quick to defend her whenever someone suggests she might be the cause of problems on the production?”
“Yes. I mean – no, I’m not so blinded by sex that I can’t think rationally. But some of the stuff that happened – well, let’s just say I know she wasn’t involved. One time, when we had to evacuate set, because someone set a fire in a city garbage can? We were in my trailer. That was tricky, getting out and not being seen.”
“Maybe that’s not a coincidence. You being her alibi.”
Quick as Ben was, he needed a second to get Tess’s meaning. “Hey, I decided to pursue her, not the other way around.”
“That’s what men always believe.”
“Are you trying to say that Selene set her sights on me, and let me think it was all my doing? That’s pretty subtle for a twenty-year-old who can barely read a newspaper.”
Tess didn’t have a particularly high opinion of Selene’s book smarts, but she had a hunch that her boy-Q was in the genius stratosphere.
“Men always believe they’re in charge, the author of their own lives. But, in my experience, women make a lot of things that happen, and let men think it was their idea.”
“Now you’re being ridiculous.”
“The night that Greer was killed, Selene told you that she would find a way to dump me and meet you at your hotel room, right? Then she went to New York. She never had any intention of seeing you, but she made sure she knew where you were – alone, in your room, waiting. But what if the plan was to send someone to the offices that night to make some more mischief with the production? The file drawers were open, papers were strewn about. Police think that Greer’s missing boyfriend did that to make it look like a burglary, but what if Greer interrupted the set gremlin and the person panicked?”
“File drawers were open?” Beneath the table, Ben’s feet were tapping so hard that he was practically doing a Mr. Bojangles buck-and-wing. “But this was in Flip’s office, right?”