Ryan Lock 04.5: Lock & Load (3 page)

   Framing it as a matter of image management seemed to do the trick. Jason lowered the gun. "I would have used it," he blustered. "Just as well you spoke fast."

   Lock followed the diminutive actor up the stairs and through a side door into the house. A plate of half eaten sushi lay on the black granite kitchen counter top next to a jug of what looked to Lock like green algae.

   Jason put the gun down and lifted the jug. "Vegetable smoothie?" he asked.

   "I'll pass," said Lock.

   Jason grabbed a glass from a cabinet and poured himself a tall one. He took a sip and made a face. "I'm trying to get in shape. Start shooting again in a few weeks. Action movie," he said. "You know I'm seeing Summer tomorrow. She could have spoken to me then."

   "I know that. That's why I wanted to speak with you first."

   The key to dealing with someone like Jason was to remember the guy had an ego the size of a planet. If Lock started barking orders at him from the get go he was more likely to become an even bigger pain in the ass. At the same time, he couldn't tip toe around him either. It would take careful handling. That was the reason he'd come without Ty, who tended to be a little too abrasive in these situations.

   "So, speak," said Jason, making a face as he chugged another inch of algae.

   "Look, we both know that women can be difficult, right?" said Lock. "I just got engaged. Great gal but we have our moments. In fact we broke up for a while after we first started seeing each other. Right person, wrong time, I guess."

   Jason glanced at him over the lip of the glass. "Look, I'm sure you know what happened so I'm not going to lie. I shouldn't have touched her, but sometimes she really pushed my buttons."

   Lock knew there would a 'but' in there somewhere. "I'm sure she did. But the fact is, you did assault her. Now she could have gone to the cops, but she didn't."

   "Yeah, and why do you think that was?" Jason asked.

   Lock could take a good guess at what was coming next. Jason clearly thought Summer hadn't pressed charges because she still held a candle for him. This was one part of the discussion that he couldn't afford to tiptoe around.

   "She didn't file a complaint because she doesn't need that kind of publicity any more than you do. You both know how the business you're in works. Save yourself a lot of trouble. Accept that it's over," said Lock. He looked around the open plan ground floor with its floor to ceiling picture windows framing the Pacific Ocean. "She's not coming back while you're still here."

   Jason sighed. His shoulders slumped. "I was going to move out today anyway. You happy now?"

   "Can I have your word on that?"

   "You can," said the actor.

   As they shook hands, Lock noticed that the actor was standing on his tip toes to close the gap in height between them. Judging by the heels of his deck shoes he was also wearing lifts.

   Gun or no gun, it was hard to be truly intimidated by a man who wore lifts. Some of the toughest guys Lock had served with in the British Royal Military Police specialist close protection unit hadn't exactly been giants. The difference was that they didn't try to compensate for it with trick shoes.

   "Gone by eighteen hundred hours?" Lock prompted.

   "You got it."

Lock left by one of the doors that fronted onto the highway. Outside, parked right in front of a tow away zone sign was a Nissan Altima with a long-haired white male in his early twenties sitting in the driver's seat, a camera in hand trained up the slope at the garden of the rehab center.

   Lock tapped the glass and thumbed a 'get the hell out of here' at the photographer. He took off with a squeal of rubber, and Lock walked north back up PCH to the Range Rover.

   He climbed in, more anxious about the situation than he had been before. Something in his gut told him that the conversation had gone far too smoothly. There had been something else that had set off alarm bells. Jason may have been chugging down a health shake but there had also been two lines of cocaine laid out on a mirror on the dining room table. If there was one thing more unpredictable than an egomaniac movie star it was a coked up egomaniac movie star who greeted visitors with a 45.

   As he drove back towards West Hollywood, he called Carrie to let her know that he had secured their deluxe beachside accommodation, but not to head over without him. Then he called Ty to give him an updated situation report.

   "You think he's going to be a good boy tomorrow?" Ty asked.

   "He'd better be," said Lock.

Six

TY STOOD GUARD
 outside one of the Chateau's twelve bungalows. Summer was the other side of the door, getting ready for the next day's press event with her publicist. Man, so far, he thought, he was loving this gig. For a start, the young actress had taken a shine to him. He could tell. It wasn't surprising either – her being surrounded by all those metrosexual movie stars all day, half of whom who probably batted for the other team. It was just a shame that she wasn't his type – too young, too skinny. Ty liked himself a woman with some meat on her bones. He only hoped she didn't make too much of a play for him. He'd let her down gently if it came to that. Wasn't anything worth worrying about anyhow, not when he had a real worry.

  It had turned out that there was a 'no firearms' rule on this gig. The LAPD were pretty strict about carry permits, either open or concealed, and Lock didn't want to fall foul of them, so for this job they would have to get by without a gun, which sucked. Ty always felt naked without his SIG Sauer.

   From nowhere, Ty caught the sweet smell of dope smoke on the air. He closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in the aroma. Maybe he should just relax and enjoy the ride, he told himself.

   "Wake the hell up, asshole."

   His eyes snapped open to the sight of Lock glaring at him.

   "Just taking a moment. She's safe inside," said Ty.

   Lock glared at him. "Okay, I'm going to do a quick recon of the room they're using for the press interviews then I'm going to check that he's out of the Malibu house and pick up Carrie. Can I count on you to stay awake while I'm gone?"

   "I was resting my eyes. Anyway, what's this guy gonna do if he shows up?"

   "Well, he pulled a piece on me when I met him."

   Ty chewed this news over slowly. "Told you we needed to be armed."

   "Not gonna happen, Tyrone. But let's not just assume this is going to be a slam dunk. The guy's unpredictable and I don't like him."

   "No shit. You don't like anyone," Ty said.

   "Okay, I particularly don't like him," said Lock.

   Lock was always sweating stuff. "She's heading off to shoot another movie soon, and you said he was too. All we have to do is get her through tomorrow."

   "And tonight," said Lock.

   "Chill, brother. I'm on it." Ty held out his fist and they bumped.

   Two bikini-clad model types weaved around Ty on their way to one of the other bungalows. He made sure not to even glance in their direction. Man, he wished Lock would let him wear his shades.

Seven

BY THE TIME Lock got back to Malibu all traces of the actor were gone – Jason had been as good as his word. The remote clicker for the garage and his set of keys sat on the marble countertop of the bar which fronted onto the living area, along with a brief note for Summer, apologizing once again for his behavior. Lock picked up the keys and clicker and left the note where it was. He was tempted to throw it into the trash but it was rarely a good idea to interfere in personal matters.

   He would advise Summer that she should have all the locks changed in case Jason had either cloned the garage door opener or copied the keys. Lock did a careful walk through of the property, paying particular attention to any possible traces of drugs. He wouldn't have put it past Jason to leave behind a bunch of blow and put in a call to the Sheriff's department himself so that he could get even with his now ex-girlfriend.

   Once Lock was satisfied that the house was it should be, he called Carrie, arranging to meet her for dinner before they headed back. The tide was in and Lock could hear heavy stones, washed smooth by the ocean, crashing into the pylons that supported the house. It was an ominous sound.

He had dinner with Carrie at a roadside Thai joint just north of the turn that led up into Topanga Canyon. With the main business of the day settled, Lock could relax. Carrie looked stunning. They held hands under the table like a couple of teenagers and Carrie teased Lock about his lack of dexterity when it came to using chopsticks. Inevitably, the conversation turned to work.

   "So what's the deal with Jason?" Carrie asked him as the waitress cleared their plates.

   "The bad news is that he's your standard Hollywood alpha male asshole with a drug problem and a bad attitude when it comes to women. The good news is that I think she got a real scare when he tried to strangle her. I don't think that she'll be going back for more."

   "I'll drink to that," said Carrie, lifting her glass of white wine and clinking it against Lock's glass of water.

   "Me too," said Lock.

   They had both seen enough of life to know that Summer was one of the lucky ones. Domestic violence was like a frog being boiled slowly in a pan of water. By the time the abused partner realized how hot it was, it was often too late to climb out.

   They paid for their meal and headed back to the beach house. "This is some place," said Carrie as they walked in.

   She took his hand and started to lead him up the stairs. "Wonder what the view's like from the bedroom?" she said as he followed her.

   Halfway up the stairs his cell phone rang. It was Ty. Carrie sighed in frustration.

   "What's up?" Lock asked his partner.

   "We got ourselves a situation," said Ty.

   "Jason showed up?" guessed Lock.

   "No, that I could deal with. It's the principal."

Eight

LOCK CAUGHT UP
 with Ty outside the bungalow. "She's freaking out," said Ty.

   "Freaking out how?" he asked him.

   "One minute she was talking to that chick Paula, all nice and calm. Next thing I know, she saying she's too scared to face the media tomorrow and Paula is telling her that it's in her contract and that she has to do it." Ty lowered his voice. "She's scared. I'm sorry, man, I know you were having some down time but I don't deal well with stuff like this."

   Lock clapped Ty on the shoulder. "You mean like emotions?"

   "Yeah, all that feelings shit and stuff. Not my area."

   "Don't worry. I'll talk to her. Has she had any phone calls from him? Emails? A text?" Lock asked.

   That was the problem with the plethora of modern communications. Someone could exit an abusive relationship and yet still be subjected to abuse via a host of other channels. Sure, people could be blocked on Facebook and Twitter but abusive former partners, not to mention anonymous trolls, were often skilled at working around online safeguards. It made Lock wonder why so many kids craved fame when the downside was so vast. Wealthy clients he had worked for knew that, often paying substantial sums to make sure that their names never appeared in the gossip columns. Showbiz was different though. You traded privacy not for fame but for money, but like every trade there was a price on the other end. Once you stepped over that line it was difficult to step back again.

   Ty took a moment to consider Lock's question. "I asked but she said she'd already switched cell numbers, and her social media is all handled by her management. She doesn't even look at any of it," Ty said.

   "Smart girl," said Lock, "I'll speak to her." He moved past Ty and knocked at the bungalow door. After a while it opened a crack and Paula, the PR woman, peeked out. "Can I come in?" Lock asked her.

   She opened the door. He walked in. Summer was perched on the couch, her head in her hands. Her face was a mask of smeared make-up and long tangled red hair. She clasped a mascara-stained tissue clasped in her right hand.

   "I'm sorry," she said. "You were supposed to be spending the evening with your fiancee, right?"

   "Don't apologize," he said. "You mind if I sit down?"

   She scooted along the couch a little. He shot the PR lady his best 'gimme a minute here' look and she disappeared into one of the bedrooms. He sat next to Summer and let the moment settle. There was an end table with a box of lavender-scented tissues. He plucked one out and handed it to her.

   "Here," he said, taking the damp tissue she was holding in trade. He threw it across the room at a small trash container next to a desk. It bounced off the edge and fell onto the carpet. He left it where it was.

   "You really suck at that," she said.

   "Ty's the basketball player," he said. "But I am good at keeping people safe. I promise you nothing's going to happen to you while I'm here."

   "And what if it already has?"

   Without having to ask, he knew what she was talking about. Abuse and the damage it caused took many forms. Perhaps the deepest and most difficult to heal was psychological. He didn't have to be a shrink to see that Summer's relationship with Jason had wounded her in ways that went way beyond the physical. Over the years he had seen people with amazing physical resilience and mental strength crumble when confronted with situations they found traumatic. When you had one view of how the world worked, only to discover a colder, more hostile reality, the realization could leave its mark. Whether it was watching a child being blow sky high on the streets of Kabul or having someone you loved and trusted try to strangle the life out of you with his bare hands, a shadow was left behind.

   "Hey," said Lock. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to. That's rule number one."

   She stared at the carpet. "Try telling the studio that."

   "The hell with them. You really think they'd go after you for breach of contract under the circumstances?"