Chapter Eighteen

Don Juan screamed.

Or more accurately, the actor who played Don Juan screamed.

The low animal howl built to a shrill crescendo as he rose from his seat before the massive flat-screen TV and hurled the remote at the wall. The shattering crack of plastic as it spilled its batteries and tiny shards put a pathetic period at the end of the cry of anger.

J.C. Harrow … all the bastards at Crime Seen … they’d ignored his warning. Ignored him. Why hadn’t the video been shown? What kind of heartless monsters were they? Hadn’t the horror of his example been enough to show them he meant business?

Moving through the sparsely furnished living room, he knocked a glass coffee table over and it cracked in ice-floe-like chunks on the hard-tile floor. He marched down the hall past the bath-room and his home office, stopping at the darkened bedroom at the end of the corridor.

Walls painted out black awaited him, with black metal blinds covering the two corner windows, the only lamp a tiny nightstand gooseneck he rarely used. Black sheets, pillowcases, and comforter covered the single bed. Even the carpeting was ebony. Less a room, more a womb.

He shut himself within, flopped onto the bed and lay in the dark, regaining control, listening to his own harsh, ragged breathing. Gradually his rage subsided.

You made a move, he told himself, they made a move. Yes, they did make a move. Their non-response was itself a response.

He beat back the urge to go down to the UBC Broadcast Center and find J.C. Harrow and choke the goddamn life out of him. Rage was not what was called for, rather cool detachment….

After all, that Crime Seen might dismiss him out of hand had always been a possibility. How many cranks did they hear from in any given week? They might mistake him for a loony tunes. They might mistake his reality video for a skillful fraud.

If they hadn’t believed the video, then his promise to increase the frequency of his conquests would’ve been written off as an empty threat.

He would need to prove himself.

To show Crime Seen his value as on-air talent. He must not take the rejection personally—all actors knew as much. Auditions were, after all, inherently brutal.

Peace settled over him, in the inky blackness, as it always did. As serenity soothed him, his mind coolly examined his plan, piece by piece, like a Legoland castle.

His next conquest would convince them.

And what a lovely costar he had nurtured for himself. Enveloped in his blanket of sweet silence and darkness, he felt himself getting aroused just thinking about her. Strange—outside of his role as Don Juan, he felt an almost asexual indifference to even the most attractive females.

But in assuming the Don Juan role—his signature role—arousal would come, particularly in the darkness of room. When he was alone, and contemplating what this next conquest would mean for his career, for his art … that was certainly arousing….

This next conquest—like the previous one—was a lovely blonde with lush legs and ripe breasts. All that blonde hair ran halfway down her back, like a lion’s mane (not a lioness—in the jungle, the king of the beasts was the real beauty).

Perhaps Harrow will make a brilliant deduction on air, he thought, smiling, and declare that blondes are part of Don Juan’s M.O. Then I can make him look stupid when my next conquest is a redhead or brunette. …

That she was a blonde was happenstance. What was significant about this particular conquest was her bank balance. An influx of cash right now would help Don Juan achieve his true goal—stardom. The important half of show business was, after all, business.

You have to spend money to make money.

And he would spend his victims’ money….

Without even touching himself, his arousal grew more intense. Partly it was the beauty of his next conquest—Don Juan loved beautiful women. Part of it was her money—the actor playing Don Juan loved money.

He smiled in the dark, imagining the dismayed look on Harrow’s face when the great “warrior” against crime viewed Don Juan’s next production. The blonde, the money, a humiliated Harrow—it all came together and his hand found himself and soon there the shudder of blessed relief….

Don Juan had arranged to meet Gina Hannan at a bar in the Valley. She was (of course)an aspiring actress (these poor talentless, deluded kids—they don’t have a chance in this tough town!).

He had chosen this older, quieter hideaway for its seclusion and lack of security cameras—just the sort of anonymous spot where a Hollywood producer might arrange to meet an aspiring actress.

Tonight mirrored the previous conquest, and others he had lined up for the future.

He would arrange to “run into” a likely, preselected target, introduce himself as Louis St. James, independent film producer, with a website and IMDb listing by way of bona fides. This would be enough to fool them, whether bright bulbs or dim, blinded as they were by the lure of “making it.”

And he knew how hard it was out here. He was talented, wasn’t he? Gifted beyond reason? And wasn’t he having to take his career in his own hands?

The couple was sitting in a back booth. Her lips made a kiss as they plucked her appletini’s maraschino cherry from its stem. Then she chewed, swallowed, and leaned forward, saying, “You really think I’m right for this part?”

An old-fashioned air conditioner was chugging over the bar’s front door and a ball game was on behind the counter; but otherwise the place was quiet, the bartender and handful of customers keeping their own counsel. Chirpy blonde Gina in her low-cut, silky orange blouse and tight jeans, was the loudest person here.

“Certainly you’re right for it,” he said. “It’s a small but showy part.”

“But a kindergarten teacher …”

“My screenwriter has researched this, and says most kindergarten teachers are under thirty. You’re under thirty….”

“Way under thirty,” she said with a laugh that seemed a little brittle to his ears.

“… and we’ll just have to … play down your glamour some. That’s the only drawback—you’re so … lovely.”

She lowered her head and blushed.

Blushed? Really? Or is she actually that good an actress?

Then her dark blue eyes focused on him like lasers. “I loved what I saw of the script.”

“I wish I’d thought to bring it,” he said. “I haven’t even printed out the current draft yet— screenwriter just e-mailed it to me. I … well, after our first interview? I asked him to beef up the schoolteacher part a little.”

“You did?”

“When we get a chance, I’ll give you the new sides and you can read for me again. … Would you like another drink?”

“I shouldn’t. We haven’t even had dinner yet. I don’t want to overdo, in case we end up going back to your place. For me to read those new pages for you?”

“Sure. But I think I will have another, if you don’t mind. I’ll hold it to three, since I’m driving … but we’re kind of celebrating, aren’t we?”

“Are we?”

“You’re about to get a part in a movie, aren’t you?”

She beamed. “I guess one more appletini won’t kill me.”

Don Juan glanced toward the bar. “Bartender’s wrapped up in the game. I’ll get this….”

He collected his tumbler and her martini glass and left the booth.

On the way back, he slipped a few drops of a liquid from a tiny vial into Gina’s drink.

Then he set the doctored appletini before her and resumed his seat, taking a nice long pull from what his date had been told was a vodka tonic but was club soda.

As they finished their drinks, he asked, “Are you ready to go get some dinner?”

Gina smiled. “What did you have in mind?”

“Well, I know a nice little Italian restaurant near where I live. I was thinking … and please don’t get the wrong idea … actually it’s an idea you gave me …”

“What is?”

“We could stop by my place, I could run off a copy of the new draft of the screenplay, and pull your pages. We could talk about the part a little. You could read for me. Then we could have a lovely late dinner. Have you home before either one of us turns into a pumpkin.”

“I’d love to! But what about my car?”

“I’ll drive you back here to pick it up.”

“Okay … I don’t think I should be driving right now, anyway. … Have to be honest … think I shouldn’t have had that third appletini. A little woozy.”

“Nap in the car on our way to my place.”

She smiled brightly. “Okay. Why not?”

They rose and he left a twenty as a tip, giving Gina a glance at the wad in his money clip. He wanted her confident in his affluence. He was already confident in hers.

Gina wasn’t your typical starving actress who worked waitress jobs to survive. Don Juan vetted all of his lovers carefully and Gina had passed with flying colors—one of those colors being a nice money green….

This attractive young woman worked as a dental assistant in Burbank for twenty-five dollars an hour. She lived in a modest apartment with several roommates as a way of saving money, banking the bulk of what she made.

Apparently she knew the road to stardom was a tough one (tell me about it!) and was preparing for the day when she started getting roles and could phase out of her day job.

Don Juan had worked day jobs, too, in addition to training to become an accomplished actor. His area of expertise was computers, which had proved very, very helpful of late.

After he’d first met Gina, at one of her acting classes, he sent her an e-mail with a Trojan horse. With her computer infiltrated, he could take control. He could even watch her through her own camera, unaware.

He followed her keystrokes and learned the passwords for her every registered site, including of course her bank.

All that frugal living and savings-account hoarding had added up, which made Gina a perfect candidate for conquest. After the loving, he would sweep in, electronically transfer her nest egg to an off-shore account, where he would finally put her cash to good use.

And Gina would not be the first to be so unknowingly generous.

The trick was to find women who were well-endowed in several senses—money and beauty. Despite his tepid personal interest in the female sex, he knew that as Don Juan his standards must be high. In Hollywood, image was everything.

She leaned against him as they made their way out of the bar and into the cool night air. The parking lot was unlit, but a three-quarter moon provided an ivory glow. Gina was a lovely girl, curvy and with all that blonde hair … though her wobbliness detracted, some.

He helped her over to his little red Mitsubishi Eclipse—sporty but not over-the-top expensive, just right for a successful indie producer. He lifted her into the passenger side, and by the time he settled in behind the wheel, she looked like a junkie on the nod—heavy eyelids, chin sinking.

She slept through the drive toward Chatsworth where Louis St. James kept a bungalow near the almost-empty reservoir. The actor playing both St. James and Don Juan did not live at this address.

Finding a place to perform as St. James—actually, perform as Don Juan playing St. James, a tricky, layered reading—had not been tough. Housing-crunch foreclosures had provided any number of out-of-the-way bungalows to choose from, for an indie producer wanting to live away from the Hollywood rat race.

He pulled in under the darkness of the carport, where its one solid wall protected him from view by his only neighbor, fifty yards away.

Gina had faded into a malleable heap that he half carried, half dragged through the side door into the house.

She woke, groaning. “Oh … I … I … don’t feel too good….”

“Well, you look lovely,” he said. “You just need to lie down awhile. You’ll feel better. Trust me.”

“Okay,” she managed.

They moved through the small kitchen, the neat, barely used living room, then down a hall to the bedroom, already arranged for tonight’s tryst.

A rather plain wooden double bed, with a spread of pink satin, elegant in its simplicity. Bouquet of roses in the nightstand vase. A wall mirror with a gold-gilt frame.

You would never guess an HD camera was behind the reflective glass, ready to document tonight’s lovemaking. And postcoital surprise. …

As he swept Gina past the mirror, she noticed the flowers and wobbled toward them.

“Roses,” she said, blinking as if trying to see underwater. “So pretty. They smell so good.”

“They’re for you,” he whispered into her ear.

He kissed her neck. Softly.

Then she turned, a languid turn but a turn, and gave her lips to him, her arms going around him, her tongue as quick and darting as her movements were otherwise slow.

The pair tumbled onto the bed and, stoned or not, she became a passionate thing. She didn’t bother to get under the covers, just stripped out of her clothes, watching him hungrily as he undressed, and her mouth was on him, swallowing him, and he liked it, he did like it….

Then he was on her, his mouth moving quickly from one breast to the other, licking and nibbling at the hard pink tips, so caught up in the role of Don Juan he could not get enough (he was Method).

Her hands went to the back of his head, guiding him, as his kisses moved down her tummy. Her legs parted as he moved even lower, knowing the camera was capturing every erotic moment he lavished upon this beautiful woman.

His tongue explored her center, her thighs tightening around his head, her moans growing deeper, more passionate with each second.

“Now,” she whispered. “Put it in me now!”

But he wasn’t ready yet.

He had been ignored by Harrow and his team of superstar losers. Well, soon they would see that Don Juan was the greatest of all lovers, he would take his time satisfying his conquest, and when the moment came for the real climax, he would show Harrow, show all of them, that Crime Seen was wasting precious air time on nothings like scam artists and gangbangers and white-collar crooks, when they could be covering a star.

A real star!

Even if he did have to keep his back to the camera.