Self-Defense by JONATHAN KELLERMAN

“Denny Mellors.” He laughed without opening his mouth. “She said something about Santa Claus and Dylan Miller. You know who Dylan Miller is?”

I shook my head.

“Grand prize asshole—and that asswipe rag he works for. Every other week we’ve got droves of assholes just like him, fucking paparazzi creeping around the building like roaches, looking for stars. The other day Julia Roberts was on the twelfth floor for a meeting and they were sweeping the bastards out with brooms. There’s no end to it.”

“Maybe you need better security,” I said.

He stared at me. This time his laughter came with a flash of capped teeth.

Pulling up the left cuff of his cardigan, he peered at a watch so thin it looked like a platinum tattoo.

I heard footsteps behind me. App looked over my shoulder, then leaned against the doorframe.

Turning, I saw a big, heavy Samoan security guard. The name on his tag was long and unpronounceable.

“Some kind of problem, Mr. App?” he said in a tuba voice that made App’s sound prepubescent.

App moved his eyes back to me and studied my face the way a casting director would. Smiling, he put a hand on my shoulder. “No, Mr.—Del Rey and I were just having a little chat.”

“Delondra called down.”

“A misunderstanding. We’re going to take a meeting, Clem. Sorry to bother you.”

I smiled at the guard. He sucked his teeth and left.

App called out, “Delondra!”

The receptionist came over, taking Geisha steps in her skin-tight jeans.

“What, Mr. App?”

App reached into his pocket and drew out a wad of bills clamped by a sterling silver monkey paw. Peeling off five, he held them out to the girl. Hundreds.

“Thanks, Mr. App, what’s this for?”

“Severance pay. You no longer work here.”

Her mouth opened. A small smooth hand closed around the bills.

App turned his back on her and said, “Come on in—was it Sandy? Let’s hear what’s on your mind. Maybe we can conceptualize it for film.”

Two walls of his office were windows; the other two, bleached maple burl. The windows showed off L.A. County the way a hawk would see it just before it swooped. The wood showcased a Warhol silkscreen of a smiling Marilyn Monroe and transparent plastic shelves full of bound scripts. Some of the screenplays had titles hand-lettered on their spines, others were blank.

App took a seat behind a blue, triangular marble desk, with nothing on it but a blue marble phone, and offered me the only other chair in the room, an unupholstered, black, straight-backed thing. At his feet was a large marble wastebasket full of more scripts.

“So,” he said. “What else have you done besides this book?”

“Journalism.” I threw out the names of a few magazines, betting he didn’t read much.

“What made you want to write about Buck?”

“Fall from grace. The whole notion of genius gone bad.”

“No kidding. Giving him money wasn’t one of the brighter things I’ve done. You can write that.”

“What led you to option poetry?”

“Soft heart,” he said. “Everything was collapsing around the bastard.” He touched his chest. “Got a soft spot for creative types.”

“Same reason you financed Sanctum?”

“Yeah. Helping young artists. What could be more fucking important, right?—don’t put “fucking’ in—hey, aren’t you going to take notes?”

“Didn’t bring anything,” I said. “I figured I’d have enough trouble getting through the door without a tape recorder and a notepad.”

“See?” More capped teeth. “Never know. You caught me on a good day. I’m Mother Fucking Teresa.”

There must have been a drawer in the marble desk, because he pulled a piece of paper out of it and waved it at me.

New Times stationery.

“Here,” he said, retrieving a bound script from the wastebasket. “Write on this. Do I need to give you a fucking pen, too?”

I pulled out a ballpoint.

“Five minutes,” he said. “All you can eat during that time, and then vamoose.” Putting his arms behind his head, he sat back.

“So you liked the concept of Sanctum,” I said. “What about Lowell’s choice of fellows?”

“Terry? Terry was a talented guy, actually. Personal problems, but who doesn’t.”

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