Casualties of War Read online

  “Besides that,” Cook said, his tone neutral.

  Over Cook’s shoulder, Stuart shook his head. It was a warning.

  Adán held his teeth together. When he thought he could speak civilly, he said, “No, nothing else.”

  Cook nodded. “One more time, Mr. Caballero.”

  Adán hid his sigh.

  Cook took him through the sequence of the evening five more times, each time stopping in different places to ask questions that seemed meaningless and trivial.

  “Yes, I saw lots of faces I recognized,” Adán replied to one stupid question. “I have a wide circle of friends and colleagues and contacts. The Vice President himself asked me to attend.”

  “The Vice President of the hospital?”

  “Of the United States.” Adán hid his irritation.

  Cook considered that. “We will have to ask you to run through mugshots for us.”

  “Tonight?” Adán said.

  “In the next few days before your memory fades,” Cook said, getting to his feet.

  “Can I go home now?” Adán asked him.

  “I’ll check in with my coordinator and see how he feels about that,” Cook replied.

  Adán sighed as Cook moved out of the tent once more. “He isn’t even a little interested in the Vistaria connection.”

  Stuart took Cook’s chair. “It is possible the connection is only in your own mind. I know it’s your family caught up in the war down there. Only, the Vistarian civil war barely blips the radar compared to other global conflicts America worries about. Most Americans have a hard time even pointing to Vistaria on a map.”

  “I know that,” Adán replied. “Only, there must be a connection. Otherwise, Serrano’s wife and a photographer grabbing a revealing photo is just a coincidence.”

  “Maybe it is.”

  “It’s too unlikely to be a coincidence.”

  “Unlikely events happen all the time,” Stuart replied.

  “I pay you to be on my side,” Adán shot back.

  “You don’t pay me to brown-nose. You’ve got staff for that,” Stuart returned.

  Adán grinned. He couldn’t help it. They both knew how much he hated the glad-handing and hypocrisy of Lalaland. “I fire staff for that,” he replied, completing the little back-and-forth exchange. It was an old one. A familiar one.

  Stuart scratched his thinning hair. “I’ll see if I can push them into letting you go. They haven’t arrested you.” He got to his feet.

  The mention of being arrested made Adán’s heart gave an extra hard beat. “Have you heard from her lately?” he asked, making his tone off-hand.

  “Parris?” Stuart clarified. He gave a small shrug. “Probably somewhere classified. You know how it goes.”

  “She always gives hints,” Adán pointed out.

  Stuart raised a brow. “She doesn’t have to. There’s only one Spanish-speaking hotspot in the world at the moment. You figure it out.” He ducked under the tent opening and disappeared, leaving Adán alone in the stuffy tent, with a growing unease.

  The only Spanish-speaking hotspot Adán knew of was Vistaria, only there were no American military of any capacity there. President Collins wouldn’t commit troops. So where could she be?

  The only certainty was that Parris Graves was not in America. She had moved on from arresting and processing party-goers, long ago.

  Adán grinned at the memory. The destruction and resulting chaos of that first party, twenty years ago, had been almost as destructive as this one…

  * * * * *

  Until the police arrived and pulled the plug on the genuine antique Wurlitzer and arrested people, Adán didn’t know the poolside cabana had collapsed from too many people dancing on the roof, or the windows on the first floor of the house were smashed.

  He had been behind closed doors in an upstairs sitting room, his attention and every pore of his body focused on charming the producers sitting around him, while trying to look nonchalant.

  It was hard to pull off, that note of casual indifference, because he hadn’t had a job in nearly a year and this was a big job. A huge, career-changing job.

  He didn’t need the producers to tell him that. He could feel it from reading the screen treatment. There wasn’t even a full script yet, although it didn’t matter. The team who was writing it weren’t big names, although Adán had seen the little Sundance winner they had written last year. Their names on the treatment shifted it from just another movie about a down-and-out cop, into a high-concept thriller.

  When the door shoved inward, dragging in air from the downstairs area that was thick with pot, everyone looked up, blinking.

  “Party’s over,” the helmeted cop with the beer gut told them.

  “What the hell, Officer?” Perry Sedona, producer and party host, protested. “We’re just talking here.”

  “Time to check on your guests, sir,” the cop behind Beergut said. Her voice was light and young although there was strength in it. “Are you aware that six of them started a party right out on Mulholland Drive?”

  “So? It’s a free country,” Sedona replied.

  “They’re naked, sir,” she shot back.

  Sedona closed his mouth.

  Adán leaned around Sedona to look at the cop.

  Freckles. Arched brows. A sharp chin. Fine neck. Wisps of red hair escaped the helmet. On her, the helmet looked heavy enough to break her neck if she tilted her head the wrong way. The gun on her hip looked as though it might outweigh her.

  She was ridiculously young for a cop. She looked as if she was playing dress up—even more than some actresses did when they were in costume for a role too old for them. That happened far more than Adán liked, only who was he to bitch? He wasn’t even a working actor.

  “Is that an actual Glock G21 .45 Auto?” Adán asked her. “Or are you just pleased to see me?”

  Her mouth fell open.

  Sedona snorted, snuffling his laughter.

  * * * * *

  They questioned Sedona’s party guests one by one and either arrested them or told them to go home. As Sedona was a popular producer, there were well over a hundred guests and as usual, the big names got released first, to escape before the sun came up.

  Adán waited his turn along with all the other unknowns. He sat with his jeans rolled up and his feet in the pool, wishing he could dive in. Swimming cleared his mind, even if it was pool water and not the ocean. While he waited, he watched cops pick through the remains of the cabana.

  House staff were roused from their beds to sweep up the glass from the broken windows. More of them cleaned up paper cups and empty bottles and other debris about the pool and the big lounge room connected to it by sliding doors.

  “Mr.…Caballero?”

  Adán looked up. The redhead was standing behind him, her notebook in hand. He lifted himself up from the brick edge and padded over to where she stood.

  She had taken off the helmet. Now he was standing beside her, he could see she was taller than he’d first realized. She could almost look him in the eye. Hers were green, making her a classic redhead.

  “Caballero is your real name?” she asked.

  “It really is my name. I’d tell you to ask my father but that would be difficult.”

  “As he’s in Mexico?”

  “He’s dead,” Adán replied. “I don’t think he ever set foot in Mexico.”

  Her eyes narrowed, puzzled.

  “Hugo Caballero,” Adán said patiently.

  Her face was blank.

  “TV producer,” he added. “Director.”

  Still nothing.

  “What’s Next, Wednesday Smith?” he said.

  Her face cleared. “I loved that show! I wanted to be Wednesday Smith so bad. I used to watch reruns when I was a kid. Your father was in it?”

  “He made it,” Adán said.

  “Your dad?” She was back to frowning again. “Then you’re a producer, too?”

  “I’m an actor.” One who couldn
’t get a job despite his famous parents—at least, famous to most people. Just not to this girl.

  Her nose didn’t quite wrinkle. He saw it twitch. Then she lifted the notebook. “A few questions, Mr. Caballero, then you can go.” The switch from person to impersonal cop was abrupt.

  “You have something against actors?” he asked.

  “Do you have some ID I can see?”

  He gave up and pulled his wallet from his back pocket and dug for his driver’s license and held it out to her.

  She rested the license on her notebook and copied down the details. “What time did you get to the party, Mr. Caballero?”

  “Around ten.”

  “That’s late, isn’t it?”

  “My shift ended late.”

  “I thought you were an actor?”

  “An out of work actor. That’s why I was here.”

  “You were auditioning?”

  “I was talking the producers into casting me. At least, until you busted in.”

  Her green eyes lifted from the notepad and skewered him. “Sorry.” She handed his license back. “You’ve got a green card, right, Mr. Caballero?”

  “What makes you think I’m not an American?”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes,” he said and hid his sigh.

  “Phone number?”

  He gave it to her. She scribbled it down, her jaw flexed. “My lieutenant will probably call you back to the station in the next few days, to follow up.” She glanced around at the destruction. “It’s possible they’ll lay charges. Even for Hollywood, this was something else.”

  “And I missed it all,” Adán said.

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “I’m joking. Jeez.”

  She flipped the page on her notebook. “Go home, Mr. Caballero. It’s a long way to San Bernardino from here.”

  Adán gave up and turned away. She wouldn’t let herself be jarred out of doing her job. So much for the Caballero charm.

  “Good luck, by the way,” she said, behind him.

  “Excuse me?” He turned back, startled.

  “The role. I hope you get it,” she said.

  “I thought you didn’t care about actors?”

  Something in her eyes shifted. “I don’t,” she said, “but I know what it’s like being told you can’t do something you love.” She nodded shortly, back to all-business and walked over to the next guest to be interviewed, a starlet with smudged mascara who Adán recognized. The starlet looked sulky and tired.

  He knew how she felt.

  * * * * *

  He would have forgotten about the redhead, except that snatches of their conversation returned to bother him over the next few days. Conversation and flashes of imagery. The freckles on her nose. The slenderness of her neck. The frankly red hair.

  The police station called two days later and set up a formal interview for two days after that. Forewarned by the redhead, Adán arranged for the family lawyer to go with him to smooth over any issues.

  The four days between the party and the interview at the station were event-packed. By the time he arrived at the Hollywood station with Chavez, Adán had almost forgotten about the party and its aftermath.

  The interview was short and non-combative. The station had done its homework and the sergeant who questioned him acknowledged Adán’s family connections and that no charges were forthcoming. They didn’t demand to see his green card or other documentation, for which Adán had been braced.

  He stepped out of the interview room thirty-five minutes later, a weight lifting from him. Chavez closed the door and shook his head. “The power of fame.” He patted Adán’s shoulder. “Still think you can break into Hollywood without using your parents’ names?”

  “There’s no point doing it any other way,” Adán said. “Sorry I dragged you down here.”

  “Better to be there and not needed, than the reverse.” Chavez shrugged. “See you around, Adán.” He turned and walked in the opposite direction, his heavy briefcase hanging from his hand.

  Adán headed for the front doors of the station. The redhead was there. He hardly recognized her, for she was wearing jeans and a tee shirt and sneakers. Her hair was loose and spilling down her back in a long, straight river of red. She flipped more of it back over her shoulder as she spoke to the sergeant at the front desk.

  Adán went up to her. “Officer…Graves?” he added, remembering the name tag he’d spotted at the party.

  She turned, the furrow between her brows. The furrow cleared. “Mr. Caballero.”

  “Adán.”

  She didn’t nod or acknowledge it. “What can I do for you?”

  Adán glanced at the sergeant, who was openly listening. “Perhaps we could step over here for a minute?”

  Impatience flickered on her face. She moved over to the other wall beside the water cooler, anyway.

  “I wanted to thank you,” Adán told her.

  “For not arresting you?”

  He couldn’t help smiling. “For wishing me good luck. It worked, you see.”

  “Oh. You got the job?”

  “Better than that.” He thought of the amazing week it had been. “I got two jobs. Not just jobs,” he added in a hurry. “They’re fantastic roles.” The second job had dropped into place months after auditioning. It was as different from the tired-cop role as it was possible to get—lead in a Victorian era romantic drama, in a role that would stretch him in all sorts of ways.

  Her smile was small, but it was there. “That’s nice.”

  “Okay,” he said heavily. “What is it about actors and you? Did one dump you?”

  Her face clouded over.

  Bingo.

  “I don’t think it’s any business of yours, Mr. Caballero.”

  “You’re right, it’s not. Only, I should thank you again, in that case.”

  “Why?” she asked, startled.

  “At the party, you said you knew what it was like being told you can’t do something you love. You presumed I was in this business because I love what I’m doing, not because I’m grasping for my fifteen minutes of fame. It’s nice to be thought well of, especially when you hate my species.”

  “I don’t hate you,” she said, her smile a little farther in place. “I’ve just been around actors my entire life. You’re flighty and ephemeral and unreliable. You get divorced as soon as you get bored, which is every thirty days. Actors serve no higher cause than themselves.”

  “Who was he?” Adán asked.

  She grimaced. “Said too much, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah.”

  “My father left us when I was five.”

  He grimaced. “That sucks,” he admitted. “Although, he didn’t leave you because he was an actor. He left because he’s a shitty human being. There’s a difference.”

  “He left because he got offered a role on Broadway,” she replied. “He never came back.”

  “My assertion still stands. And anyway,” he said, warming to his argument, “actors are not useless. Without movies and TV, without books, without stories, humans would go insane inside a week. Stories explain life. It’s how humans learn.”

  “It’s not exactly serving your country, is it?” she returned, a tinge of pink in her cheeks.

  “You want I should beat up bad guys for you, instead? That’s what it takes to earn your respect?”

  “I’m the one with the Glock, remember?”

  “Right. I did forget.”

  “I don’t need rescuing, Mr. Caballero.”

  “Adán.”

  “And if I did, my husband would do it. He’s good at beating up bad guys.”

  Adán smiled. “I believe it.”

  She considered him. “You didn’t flinch.”

  “I should have?”

  “I mentioned a husband. Most guys do.”

  “I’m not most guys,” he said. “Besides, I’m not trying to hit you up for a date. You’re not my type.”

  “I’m not?” Her tone was curio
us, not indignant.

  “I’m Vistarian.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “That should mean something?”

  “You haven’t even heard of Vistaria?”

  “It’s in Mexico, right?”

  “Next to Mexico. Vistarian men, they like taking care of their women. They like beating up the bad guys for them, so the lady doesn’t have to. It’s in our DNA. I would just trip you up.”

  She laughed. It was an honest bellow, not a polite twitter. “Have you ever hit anyone in your life?”

  “No,” he admitted. “For you, though, I would.”

  Her smile faded.

  “For any lady, I would,” Adán amended. “I’m just trying to thank you.”

  “I consider myself thanked,” she replied and straightened. “Anyway…”

  “See you around, Officer Graves.”

  “Oh la, Mr. Caballero.”

  It took him a second to realize what she had tried to say was hola. He clutched his chest. “God, that was awful! Who taught you Spanish? A drunk Frenchman?”

  She grinned. “I suck at languages,” she admitted, with a candid air.

  “You absolutely do,” he agreed. “Goodbye, then,” he added.

  “Ciao,” she replied, mangling that, too.

  * * * * *

  Adán shifted on the folding chair, listening to the wail of sirens and watching red, green and blue, even yellow lights, revolve and flash against the side of the tent, as he thought of Parris Graves and how they had met.

  Running into her the second time should have been the end of it. They lived in different worlds, even though they were in the same city. Fate, which Adán had disavowed all his life until that year, threw them together.

  The next time he saw Parris Graves, she was in uniform once more and wrote a speeding ticket for the director driving the car Adán was in. Adán joked about being arrested. Parris wrote the ticket and traded quips in abysmal Spanish while the director laughed. The director was still shaking when he took the ticket.

  Then, the boat incident.

  It had all happened so innocently. So gradually.

  And now, Parris was off somewhere defending her country, while Adán was sitting about drinking cocktails, while his country imploded.

  Perhaps she had been right about actors all along.

  Chapter Two