The Actor's Guide To Murder Read online

  Laurette’s usual modus operandi was intimidating her adversaries with her imposing physical stature. She was a large woman, with hair stylishly coiffed and hands perfectly manicured. She dressed for success and carried her weight beautifully. Her confidence was infectious, her demeanor sweet but clearly in charge. I like to think a lot of smart men would take her any day over one of those stick-thin wispy women on Friends.

  But today, she had nothing over this woman in size, so it would be up to her overpowering personality to save the day.

  A lot of naysayers never thought Laurette’s business would take off. Most of her clients were has-beens like me with tattered careers and no place else to go. She single-handedly capitalized on the nostalgia craze and found us all work, establishing herself as a manager as well. Laurette was like the mother hen in our circle of friends, taking care of everybody, making sure we were all happy. And that included securing a booth at Koo Koo Roo. She knew how much I hated sitting at the regular tables.

  “There are at least twenty diners who had an unobstructed view of what happened, and they all saw my tray hit the table first,” she said to the angry Russian woman. “Now, we can start polling them with the manager and let your vegetable soup get cold, or you can cut your losses and enjoy what’s left of your lunch hour. What’s it going to be, honey?”

  Laurette said it all with a pleasant smile. And finally, the woman grabbed her tray of food and slumped away, defeated.

  Laurette and I slid into the booth.

  “So how did it go?” she asked.

  “Not good. They didn’t even let me get through the scene once. But Willard was there to audition too. He got the part.”

  “Willard? Hmmm.” I could see Laurette’s mind racing. Willard wasn’t in her stable, and she was now focused on ways to get him there.

  I grabbed some silverware off Laurette’s tray and started poking at my boneless breast of chicken. Laurette and I met here for lunch because we were both attempting Dr. Atkins’s High Protein Diet and healthwise, we could do much worse than Koo Koo Roo.

  As I updated Laurette on my plans to throw Willard an impromptu birthday party at the house, I could see her thought process shift from Willard’s current representation to the food in front of her. She didn’t look happy. She gave me a conspiratorial look. I knew exactly where she was going.

  “No. It’s only been a day,” I said. “We have to stick with this.”

  I followed her eyes to the glass case of side dishes. The macaroni and cheese was piping hot and calling to us.

  I tried in vain to stop the inevitable. “We’ll hate ourselves later.”

  “We can do an extra ten minutes on the treadmill.”

  That was all it took. We were both up at the counter ordering a large tub apiece.

  “Besides,” she said. “You’re older now. Your future is character roles. You don’t need to be in such great shape anymore.”

  That wasn’t exactly what I needed to hear. In fact, after a crack like that, I needed that damn macaroni and cheese more than ever.

  God, I missed the heady times of the eighties when I was on everybody’s “Who’s Hot” list. I was making four times as much money a week as my father, couldn’t go to a mall without causing a stampede, and shared Teen Beat covers with Duran Duran. I loved every minute of it. Especially since it kept me so busy that I never had to honestly deal with my burgeoning homosexuality. My parents believed I collected all those Teen Beat magazines as keepsakes of my career. Ha! I just wanted to know what Simon Le Bon slept in every night.

  Back then I was just foolish enough to believe it would last forever. But in the show’s final season, the fun abruptly stopped. I was no longer cute enough for ABC’s kid-friendly Friday night line-up. I had reached that awkward puberty stage. So the panicked producers brought in an adorable moppet for the family to adopt in order to spruce up ratings.

  This was a major blow to morale, especially since the kid was a holy terror. One explanation for his irrational behavior was the fact his mother still breast-fed him at five years old!

  This was also about the time our happy small screen family began falling apart. Our TV Dad plowed his Mercedes into a telephone pole and tried to flee the scene in order to avoid a Breathalyzer test. The twenty-five-year-old junkie who played my older brother was appearing less regularly due to his impending court trial on a date rape charge. But all of that paled in comparison to the National Enquirer printing photos of me kissing another male child star at the LA gay rodeo.

  The network, in all its infinite wisdom, decided to pull the plug. That was 1985.

  Essentially my career was dead. An innocent kiss amidst a bunch of gay guys in cowboy hats and spurs might seem harmless today, but back then it was as if I was a participant in the Manson family murders. Nobody took my calls.

  I wasn’t bitter. It was a different time in Hollywood. Rock Hudson had just died of AIDS. America was worried about Linda Evans’s health because she had kissed Rock on the lips in a Dynasty episode. The thought of gay people was unsettling.

  At first I tried to tell everyone we were just rehearsing for a Mart Crowley play. I buried the truth for as long as I could, but as we entered the nineties, and the Democrats won the White House, it became a little bit easier to stop pretending. And I finally had the opportunity to come into my own as a gay man out of the public eye.

  My parents were petrified that I’d go the way of other child stars and hold up a video store or sue them for squandered residuals, but I didn’t. In fact, on the Gary Coleman-Jodie Foster Post Child Star Meter, I was definitely closer to Jodie. I was pretty well adjusted.

  My parents invested my earnings from the show well. In fact, we bought Intel at just the right time, and now I never have to work again. Don’t hate me. That’s just the way life works out sometimes.

  As I hit my mid-twenties, that wretched acting bug bit me again. But this time it wasn’t about fighting my way back into the spotlight. After spending several months in New York attending every Broadway and Off Broadway show on the boards, I developed a newfound respect for the craft of acting, something I had absolutely no understanding of when I was one of the highest paid actors on television. This time I could focus on the process instead of the fame, study with the best teachers, work with people I respected and admired.

  It didn’t quite work out that way. I wasn’t opening at the Richard Rodgers Theatre playing Iago to James Earl Jones’s Othello, but I did manage to reconnect with Laurette, my former high school beard/prom date, who was starting up her new talent management business. She quickly secured me a few plum parts on a handful of hit shows. One of the more memorable roles was a tour de force performance in Touched by an Angel as a paraplegic teenager who hears the word of God through his Nintendo game.

  Laurette fished her wallet out of her purse and turned to me. “So my afternoon is clear and you have no more auditions until Monday. Want to go see a movie?”

  “No, I have an appointment I want to keep.”

  “What?” she asked as she paid for our side dishes. I could tell her interest was peaked. We talked every morning to meticulously go over our schedules, and this was something she didn’t know about.

  I dreaded telling her. “It’s . . . um . . . I’m seeing . . . Isis.”

  “Oh God!”

  “It’s been a year. I think it’s time.”

  Isis was my Egyptian psychic. It’s not like Laurette didn’t believe in psychics. She just didn’t relish the idea of me listening to what another woman had to say.

  “Just be careful, Jarrod,” she offered. “You tend to give her readings a little too much power.”

  I was armed and ready for this one. I only had to list all the predictions that had come true over the last few years—the sudden resurgence in my career, my solid relationship with Charlie, and my high blood pressure. She even saw another soul joining our family, and two months later Charlie brought home our Pekinese Snickers.

  I didn’t
care what anybody said. Isis was good.

  “Look, she does have talent, especially when she told me my entire family should be institutionalized,” Laurette said. “I know she can see things. But you pay attention to her every word, and then you run out and make it all happen. No wonder she loves you so much.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with making things happen if you like what she says.”

  Laurette knew she wasn’t going to win this one, so she stopped trying. She decided to direct her attention to the macaroni and cheese.

  “I don’t have much to ask her today,” I said. “I want to talk mostly about my career, and why it’s become so important to me again.”

  “I can answer that one. You miss being the center of attention.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “All your life you were the center of attention, especially when you were a kid. Now outside of our little clique, nobody much cares. You’re trying to recapture the glory.”

  How dare my best friend offer up such a simplistic, ridiculous, completely insensitive theory? Of course she was absolutely right. I couldn’t even begin to argue with her.

  “Actually I could care less why it’s become important again. I just want to know if I’m going to get a guest part on ER or something.”

  Laurette nodded. I knew she felt bad for not finding more work for me, but she was trying her best. And she had other clients to think about. We polished off the macaroni and cheese.

  “What time are you meeting Isis?”

  “I’ve got an hour.”

  I knew exactly what was on her mind, so I beat her to it.

  “Frozen yogurt?”

  She grabbed her purse and hauled me out the door.

  After I left Laurette at Baskin Robbins arguing with the sales clerk over the pitiful amount of Butterfingers pieces he put in her fat free yogurt, I drove over to Isis’s apartment complex in West Hollywood.

  I parked on Harper Avenue, a quiet, tree-lined street built up with an endless row of weathered three story buildings packed with struggling actors, directors and musicians. You could smell the desperation in the air.

  I crossed the street to one of the newer freshly painted buildings, stopped outside a gate and rang the bell.

  After I was buzzed in, I headed up to the second floor and knocked on the door.

  Isis opened the door and gave me a hug. She was about thirty-five, tiny, thin, with big brown eyes and a warm, relaxed smile.

  Her apartment was small and cramped, but she had worked hard to make it feel cozy. There was nothing subtle in her decoration—the furniture was thrift shop chic with lots of frilly print pillows flung about that she had brought back from her family’s home in Cairo. The walls were filled with religiously themed portraits, her favorite being Christ on the cross. I had to position myself so I was facing away from that one. I could never feel comfortable asking her if I needed toys to enhance my sex life with Charlie while Jesus stared at me.

  She offered me a drink from a large jug of water. I declined.

  If you looked around the room, you would notice that every item in the place, from paper towels to cat food, was huge. Not just family size. More like small country size. She obviously bought in bulk. She liked to brag about how much money she saved every week with her thrifty way of shopping. Isis spent the first twenty years of her life in Egypt. I often wondered how difficult those years must have been for her without a Price Club card.

  We sat across from each other on the floor, her coffee table between us. She dealt a few cards, rolled some crystals in her hand, and closed her eyes. This was my favorite part. The start of a psychic reading was always so full of pomp and circumstance, as if the universe was about to throw a party and you’re the honored guest. It’s all about you, and as an actor, I can attest that it doesn’t get much better than that.

  She asked me to give her the first three numbers between one and nine that came to mind. I did. She asked for three more. I gave her three more. She rubbed the crystals harder. Her eyes remained closed.

  I was beginning to worry. By this point in a reading Isis’s eyes usually popped open and she was off and rolling. But today her face contorted into a mask of distress. I shifted uncomfortably. What was going on?

  She dropped the crystals. The sharp sound startled me. Without opening her eyes, she flipped over a card. It was the “Death” card. Okay, I wasn’t going to panic. I had been to enough psychics to know the “Death” card didn’t necessarily mean you’re going to die. It could mean the death of a relationship, or the death of your fears, or even the end of a certain phase in your life.

  Isis finally opened her eyes and fixed them upon me. She had a very serious expression on her face. Now I was worried. Normally at this point she would be prattling on about how this year was going to be a year of upheaval and transition, how I was going to clean house to prepare for my new cycle. But none of that came. She was gearing up to tell me something, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it. I couldn’t stand the suspense anymore.

  “What? What is it?”

  “There’s going to be a death. I don’t know how else to say it.”

  “Who? My boyfriend? My dog? Me? Who?”

  “I’m not sure. But it’s someone close to you.” She swallowed hard, and shook her head as if trying to rid her mind of the disturbing images. Her voice cracked as she spoke. “A murder. I see someone murdered.”

  Isis threw a hand over her mouth and fell back.

  Suddenly it didn’t seem appropriate to ask if I was going to get a juicy part on Judging Amy.

  Chapter Three

  I was still dizzy from the shock of Isis’s revelations as I gripped the steering wheel of my BMW and navigated my way along the winding streets high up in the Hollywood Hills.

  My first thought was Charlie, my boyfriend of three years. Could Isis mean Charlie? After all, Charlie was a detective with the LAPD. He was always putting himself in danger. Every night I arrived home before he did, my mind raced with the agonizing possibilities. What case was he working on? Thanks to my sometimes chronic self-absorption, I couldn’t remember.

  I fumbled for the cell phone and quickly punched the speed dial. I got his office voice mail. I left a brief message. I didn’t want to panic him.

  “Omigod! Call me as soon as you get this! Isis said someone close to me was going to die, and I’m freaking out that it might be you! Call me! Call me! Call me! Oh by the way, we’re having about fifteen people over tomorrow night for Willard Hornsby’s birthday. Sorry.”

  I clicked off. What if it was Charlie? Or what if it was Laurette, or Ellen the casting director, or Willard, or Isis herself? But then again, it could be Dolores the sweet natured checkout lady at the Beachwood Market where I shopped, or Kamil, the handsome hairy-chested Turkish mechanic who always smiled and waved when I pumped gas at the Mobil station. Or God forbid . . . Snickers!

  I tapped the garage door opener that was clipped onto my sun visor as I swerved up to a cottage-like English Tudor home on a hillside. The door croaked and strained as it lifted up, and I gunned the car inside. There was no time to waste.

  One of my fears was instantly allayed however, as I reached for the house key that led into the kitchen and heard the familiar sound of a jangling dog tag. Snickers was fine. I heaved a sigh of relief.

  I bent down to give her a pat as I came in and went straight over to the phone to check the messages on our answering machine. There were none. At least for the time being there was no bad news for me. Everyone was apparently alive and kicking. I would feel a lot better, though, once I knew Charlie was safely back in his office after a day of fighting crime.

  Charlie and I met on a fateful night three years earlier. I was visiting my friend Michelle from acting class in her small house on Gardner just off funky, grunge-influenced Melrose Avenue. We were celebrating the completion of her studies to convert to Catholicism (I don’t judge, I just support) and had indulged in far too many jello shots, as Catholi
cs old and new are prone to do. We were trying to control our hysterical fits of laughter (I’m sure one of us said something funny, but who can really remember after that many jello shots?), but a neighbor in the vicinity couldn’t sleep because of our racket and called the cops.

  A few minutes later, standing there in the window was a six-foot-two, strapping young man with dancing, playful hazel eyes, short-cropped hair, and an engaging, charismatic smile that should come with a warning for causing severe heart palpitations.

  Of course I discovered the smile later. At the time, he wasn’t smiling. He was supposed to be giving us a stern warning.

  Through my blurry haze, I asked if he and his partner wanted to come in and join us. Michelle, for some odd reason, thought the idea of that was even funnier than anything we had said before. She toppled over on the couch, howling.

  Charlie’s partner was all business, but Charlie confided that they had received a call that a wild raucous party was in full swing. He had expected sixty or seventy people, not two obnoxiously loud out of work actors with too much time and liquor on their hands.

  There was an instant chemistry. I wasn’t even sure he was gay, but I knew he was mine. I quickly scanned for a wedding ring, and smiled when I didn’t see one. Michelle and I apologized profusely, and promised to keep the noise in check.

  Charlie nodded and headed back to the patrol car with his partner. I thought he winked at me when he turned to leave, but I couldn’t be sure. Michelle was positive he did.

  Well, I was about to drop the whole thing and mix up another batch of jello shots when I thought I heard a prowler. Michelle was certain that it was just her cat Mustafa banging a crumpled up piece of paper around in the next room. Still, why take chances?

  I scooped up the phone and called the police. I specifically requested the nice officer who had paid us a visit earlier. Charlie was back in ten minutes. I followed him outside as he checked the immediate area for any signs of trespassing. I had no time to lose. By the time his sweep was over, I found out he was from Michigan, had just turned thirty, was about to get promoted to detective, lived in Silverlake (LA’s second biggest gay neighborhood), and was recently divorced. From a woman.