Eleventh Hour

to be the best—the fastest, the smartest—and everyone has to recognize it and praise him endlessly.”
    Savich sat forward, clasped his hands between his knees, and said, “Other than his need for everyone to know how great he is, can you think of a reason why he’d actually follow a TV script to murder people?”
    “Because it’s weird, it’s different, that’s why. The Little Shit really likes to think up things to show his scope, all his abilities that are so much more impressive than, say, yours or mine. A murder would be a different kind of challenge for him. If he is the one killing these people, then he had to know that the police would catch on soon enough. Hey, I bet he even set it up to get the police pretty close to him, and that would put him center stage, right in the spotlight. Does that make sense?”
    “Not really,” Sherlock said.
    Another roller came out and Belinda scratched her scalp. “Of course it doesn’t, I’m just being bitchy. If I really had to vote, though, I’d pick Jon.”
    “Jon Franken?” Savich said, and he knew a moment of real surprise and recognized it for the mistake it was. Everyone in this bloody studio was a suspect. Still, he hadn’t put Jon Franken in the mix, not really, because he was just—what? He was too together, he was focused. He was very Hollywood, yes, that was it; he was normal in that he fit just right into this specific environment. Savich just couldn’t see him at ease in a murderer’s world.
    He said to Belinda Gates, “Why do you think it’s Jon Franken?”
    “Well, Jon is one of the sexiest guys who’s not an actor in LA. He’s slept with more women than even Frank knows about, and believe me, Frank knows just about everything. Jon’s sexual prowess has helped him really plug in to everything in LA that counts. He knows everyone, knows who’s on the A list at any given time for the past ten years, and that’s because he’s slept with them. He knows stuff he probably shouldn’t know, knows all the players, intimately, most of them, including me, not that I’m a big player, mind you. Sex is powerful. Maybe sometimes even more powerful than money.”
    Savich thought that was probably true. The good Lord knew that if he chanced to look at Sherlock—it didn’t matter where they were or what they were doing—the chances were he wanted her right at that very minute. He remembered just the week before they hadn’t even made it into the house. They’d made love against the garage wall. But to have sex color every encounter, to make it the cornerstone of your success, to have sex as a major building block to help you get what you wanted and to get you plugged in —no, he really couldn’t relate to that.
    Belinda said, “I know that all makes it sound like Jon is a real Hollywood predator, and he is, but I’m using ‘predator’ in the good sense.”
    Sherlock laughed. “I’ve never before heard a person described as a predator in a good sense.”
    “As sort of the real insider,” Belinda said, no offense taken. Then she frowned. “But then there’s another side to Jon. He’s got a mean streak, and it’s really deep inside him.”
    Sherlock said, “Tell us about this mean streak. We haven’t seen it.”
    “Well, when I stopped sleeping with him, I was the one to break it off—not him. Normally it’s Jon who wants to move on, but the word is that he does it very smoothly, doesn’t leave a woman wanting to cut his—Well, doesn’t leave a woman wanting revenge. Nope, he manages to keep his women as friends.
    “Don’t get me wrong, he would have been the one to move on from me, too, but it just so happened that I met Frank.” Belinda leaned closer. “It still scares me when I think about it. I told Jon the truth. I remember he just stood there, right in front of me, and his hands were fists at his sides. He didn’t hit me. He just said in this really soft voice that I was a bitch and no woman dumped him. I think he slashed my tires, but since I didn’t see him actually do it, I can’t prove it. I’d call that pretty mean.”
    “I would, too,” Sherlock said. “But that isn’t the end of it, is it?”
    “Right. Then there was Marla James, a young, real pretty girl who actually had some talent. I don’t know what went on between them, but whatever happened, Jon saw to it that she was kicked off her show. I heard she was pregnant—by Jon? I don’t know, but she left LA.”
    Sherlock took down all the