Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Rex Sterling
There are cracks in Hollywood’s glitzy, glamourous image if you know where to look.
If you’re on the Boulevard, just look down. You’ll see the literal cracks in the Walk of Fame. Some of the stars are chipped and fading. And so many of the names etched in those stars are of people long gone, who hardly anyone besides classic movie aficionados remember.
And then there’s the sidewalk itself. Talk about cracks! That thing is busted and pocked. You have to be careful or you’re liable to catch your toe in one of the jagged tears and faceplant.
It all runs in front of sections of urban blight, where abandoned theaters or closed bodegas mix with the still-open tourist traps that sucker people to shell out hard-earned cash from all over the world.
For whatever reason, though, I love it all.
The shiny. The gritty. The lights. And even that dark underbelly.
Los Angeles is my city. And Hollywood is my happy place.
At the moment, I was happy as could be as I drove my 1954 Buick Skylark down Hollywood Boulevard, crawling along in the bumper-to-bumper traffic until I hooked a right on Highland. Going north, the traffic was a little thinner, but by Hollywood standards, that didn’t mean much.
It was only one block later that I went left on Franklin.
Driving west, I continued until I hit the Magic Castle and turned just past it.
The street was narrow and steep, taking me up into the hills, and before I knew it, the winding path had taken me to Yamashiro—an upscale but not too fancy Japanese restaurant resting on the side of a mountain, overlooking the busy hubbub of the city below.
The brilliant California sun shone off the shiny black paint of my car, and I was thankful for my sunglasses as I turned into the parking lot.
I wasn’t in a hurry. My car—rather cool car, I might add—stood out and made it difficult to follow people.
Thankfully, I’d already followed the folks I needed to earlier.
When I do that sort of work, I drive my nondescript Honda Accord.
But it’s a small car and I’m a big guy. Plus, the Buick is just a lot cooler.
I pulled up to the valet and eased my large frame out of my vehicle. Even though I stood five inches over six feet, it wasn’t hard, thanks to the car’s top being off. So, I didn’t have to worry about my head hitting the roof, but my body was sore from a little scuffle I’d been in the previous week.
That one is a long story that I’ll not go into here.
I sighed as I waited.
Valet parking was fine for some, but I didn’t trust anyone else to drive my car. Maybe I should’ve taken the Accord. I hadn’t remembered that Yamashiro was valet only. No self-parking lot.
The neighborhood streets around here are narrow, and if you wanted to think about parking on the street—which there’s no way I’d park my car on those little roadways—you’d have to possess a residential permit. So, I wouldn’t park my car out there even if I wasn’t worried it would get hit.
I sure didn’t want it to be towed!
The young man manning the station finally trotted over to me. “Good afternoon. Welcome to Yamashiro, sir.” His eyes widened as he admired my Buick. “Whoa! She’s a beauty.”
“Thanks.”
He was a handsome kid. Maybe even pretty. Probably twenty-three or twenty-four. Looked like a wannabe actor.
Hell, they were all wannabe actors out here.
But I could see him on a soap opera or syndicated show.
Do they still make either of those?
If so, he’d be good on them. But he didn’t strike me as a top-tier leading man type.
“You know, this ride is very important to me. I’ve even named her. Veronica. After Veronica Lake.”
The name didn’t seem to register with him. That was too bad. Young people these days had no appreciation for the classics. Though he did seem enamored with my car. That was a point in his favor, at least.
“Sir, I’ll take good care of your car. Promise.”
I thanked him with a twenty-dollar bill, gave him the keys, and headed into the restaurant.
Every time I went there, I was fascinated by it.
It was built over a hundred years ago as a replica of a palace in Kyoto. Two brothers—titans of the cotton industry or something like that—designed it as a mansion to house their collection of rare Asian art and antiques.
The whole place has a storybook quality: pagodas, curved roofs, carved wood panels, koi ponds, lantern-lit pathways, and an open-air courtyard at its center. The gardens wrap around the structure like a cloister, and the trees look and smell lovely.
I walked over to the pool—decorative only, not used for swimming—and surveyed the pagoda that stood just past it, near the hill’s edge. Beyond it, where the earth dropped off, L.A. stretched far and wide in the distance.
Up here, though, was like a sanctuary.
A woman sidled up to me and looked the same direction.
“See that? The pagoda?” I asked.
“That’s what those are called?” she said.
“Right.” I kept my eyes on the tiered, tower-like structure with stacked roofs that tapered as they rose, stretching up as if it had a divine purpose.
“That’s the oldest structure in California.
Dates back to the fourteenth century. The brothers who built this place had it preserved and brought over from Japan. ”
“That’s fascinating,” the woman said. “But right now, I’m more interested in what my husband is doing.”
I looked at her. “Of course, Miss Reynolds. Let’s go inside and have a drink.”
Leading the way, we went into the unique estate turned restaurant and bar.
This was not going to be a fun conversation.
“Your husband is having an affair,” I said. “I’m sorry to be blunt. But there’s no easy way to say it.”
Years ago, a private investigator would have slid a manila folder containing photographs of the illicit relationship across the table. But I just showed her the images of her husband and another woman strolling hand in hand along Rodeo Drive.
“I took those yesterday. You can scroll through if you’d like. But I’m afraid it gets worse.”
She looked up at me. “It’s not an affair. We’re polyamorous. I’ve slept with two other men this week alone. He knows.”
I nodded and then took a sip of my yellow dragon—a cocktail of Knob Creek rye whiskey, Benedictine, passion fruit, lemon, and allspice dram—savoring the delightful flavor before saying, “That would’ve been useful information when you hired me.”
The sixty-year-old woman nodded, too, her red bob swaying slightly. “I’m sorry. But I didn’t feel it was pertinent to why I hired you.”
“Well, the worse I referenced is,” I continued.
“That’s who is bleeding you out. Scroll through those pics.
You’ll see a few of that same woman wearing a wig that looks a lot like your hair, with a face that looks a lot like yours thanks to some movie magic, making multiple withdrawals and even visiting one of your safety deposit boxes. ”
“So that’s who and how! Son of a bitch!”
I took another drink and gave her some time to digest the information. Clearly, the son of a bitch was her husband. He and his mistress were robbing his own wife.
“He’s ruining us! The studio is on the verge of bankruptcy.”
I nodded, not quite knowing what to say.
The movie studio Miss Alicia Reynolds and her husband Joe ran wasn’t anything big. But they’d made a splash in the indie world. Even had some Oscar nominations for their latest picture.
But none of that mattered when they were struggling to stay afloat.
“Mr. Reynolds has a gambling problem,” I said. “You know when he said he was going to meet with investors in Palm Springs?”
She lowered her own cocktail before it even reached her lips and bobbed her head. I don’t think she’d taken one single sip of that thing the entire time we’d been sitting there.
“Well, he didn’t. Drove all the way up to Vegas and blew about ten grand at the MGM. Pictures are there, too, if you scroll beyond those of his accomplice at the bank.”
Her knuckles were burning white-hot as she clenched her fists tight. A string of bitter curses escaped her full lips, but they were under her breath and didn’t draw the attention of anyone nearby.
Once she’d recovered, she said, “You drove all the way to Vegas?”
I swallowed a drink and wiped my mouth with the little paper napkin I’d been given with my drink. “No, ma’am. Outsourced that. I know a team of guys in Vegas who helped me out. It’s all in the expense report I’ll email you later.”
What I didn’t mention was that the guys in Vegas who’d helped me out was the fabled Daddy Guard. But they probably weren’t known to her, unless Miss Reynolds ran in circles I didn’t know about.
We sat with the revelations for a while. She still didn’t touch her drink; I drained mine.
About five minutes later, she said, “Thank you, Mr. Sterling.”
“Please. Call me Rex.”
“Well, Rex, I truly appreciate all this. I might need you some more during the divorce proceedings.”
“Anytime.”
“And can the police call you?”
“Of course. All of this is in a report that I’ll email you as soon as we leave here. I’ve laid it out neat and tidy, so they should be able to move quickly.”
“Thank you again.”
I stood. “Ma’am. For what it’s worth… I’m truly sorry. I wish I had better news to report.”
“Thank you,” she said, picking up her drink.
This time, she was going to go for it.
After a gulp, she said, “Payment will be sent this afternoon.”
I nodded in acknowledgment before leaving. On my way back to the restaurant’s front, I passed a cute woman who was serving one of the tables I walked by.
Something about her grabbed me, and for the briefest of moments, thoughts of cuddling her and playing with her at Auntie Athena’s nursery flashed across my mind.
But that was ridiculous and I reminded myself of that. Not every beautiful woman I saw was a Little. And not every Little I met was supposed to be my Little. But after a day like today—when I had to deliver some truly devastating news—it sure would have been nice to have a cutie to go home to.
I would have spoiled her. Cherished her. Held her tight.
Maybe one day, I told myself as I went outside to the only woman currently in my life, Veronica. Once I got my car and tipped the kid another twenty spot, I pulled over at the edge of the parking lot before turning out onto the street and got out my phone to check my messages.
I was curious if a new job had come in. One might think the P.I. business was old fashioned, but we’re actually as in demand as ever. Social media has created a lot more chances to cheat, so there’s no shortage of partners needing investigative services.
Most of my business came from attorneys and corporations, though.
But work wasn’t what I truly wanted to see about. No, I was thinking about her.
It was kind of ridiculous because I didn’t know much about her. Just a first name. And who knew if that was even correct?
But she called herself Lila, so I called her that, too, in our messages.
We’d met in an online Littles/Bigs forum.
Anyway, things were going okay, as far as I could tell.
I mean, as good as things could go when two people barely knew anything about one another and just chatted online.
But we chatted quite a bit and seemed to be progressing.
Were we ready to take it to the next level? What if I invited her out to L.A.? Or I could go see her on the East Coast. Meeting face to face was probably the only way to truly get to know each other. Right?
Don’t be silly, I told myself. You’ve seen two pics of this lady and those didn’t even tell you much. For all you know, you’re being catfished.
Perhaps I was just lonely. Sometimes, a Daddy without a Little can be pretty damn miserable. But maybe I’d find my babygirl.
Maybe one day soon…