Not Dead Yet

with our broker, Peter Marshall, at DeWitt Stern – he’s gonna—’
    The grumpy stewardess reached out her hand, imperiously.
    ‘Sir, I’m sorry, I’m going to have to take your cellphone for the duration of the flight if you don’t switch it off.’
    ‘Do you know who I am?’ he shouted at her.
    She frowned. ‘Having memory problems are you, sir?’ She glanced down at the list she was holding in her free hand. ‘Seat 2B? You’re Mr Larry Brooker! Does that help you, sir?’
    He balled his fists in frustration. ‘Jesus!’
    ‘God delusions. I’m sure we can find a chaplain to assist you.’
    Larry Brooker drained the remains of his glass of champagne before the bitch seized that, too.
    Then he sat, in silent fury, as the plane jerked and bumped along its taxi path, his thoughts veering between ritually disembowelling the harridan, and the prospects of salvaging his rapidly collapsing film production. They had Gaia, one of the world’s most bankable stars. They now had their leading man, Judd Halpern, a senior B-lister to replace that coked-up shithead A-lister, Matt Duke,who’d trashed himself in a car wreck. They had their director, ageing Jack Jordan, a two-times Academy Award nominee, a prima donna who had a reputation for being impossible, but who was hungry for this project because he saw it as possibly his last chance to bag an Oscar.
    They were not going to get shafted by a goddamn insurance company wimping out. No way.
    No fucking way, baby.
    He ordered a Bloody Mary as soon as the drinks started after take-off. Then another. Followed by another. Then some wine with his meal, until he finally reclined his seat and fell into a stupor.
    At eight o’clock the next morning he staggered off the plane, clutching his overnight bag in one hand and a bottle of water, understanding, as he did each time he made this domestic journey, why they called it the Red Eye Special. His mouth was parched and his head felt like it had a heavyweight title fight going on inside it.
    An hour later he climbed out of the limousine, clutching another complimentary bottle of mineral water, and entered the front door of 420 Lexington Avenue, the headquarters of the insurance company DeWitt Stern. He’d worked with one of its principals, Peter Marshall, on several previous productions. Marshall was a good guy, who had never let him down. His mission today was to persuade the insurance broker not to be put off by a little thing like an attempt on Gaia Lafayette’s life. They were going to be in England. The UK, for fuck’s sake. The safest goddamn place on earth. If someone was seriously out to kill Gaia, then where better for her to be? A country that had no guns.
    Marshall would agree. He was smart, he would get it.
    Larry popped a sugar-free mint gum into his mouth to mask the alcohol on his breath. Then he stepped out of the elevator and walked up towards the reception desk with a big, warm smile on his face.
    His winning smile.

16
    Roy Grace was smiling.
    ‘You look so happy, my love,’ Cleo said in greeting as he let himself in at the front door of her home. It was twenty to midnight. Her hair was pinned up and she was wearing a slinky, powder-blue nightdress beneath her bathrobe. Humphrey, their young rescue dog – a Labrador–Border Collie cross – barked enthusiastically, jumping up at his suit trousers, wanting attention too, his high-pitched yip-yap-yips echoing around the cobbles of the gated townhouse development.
    ‘You make me happy,’ he said and kissed her, then tugged Humphrey’s ears. The dog immediately rolled on his back. Grace knelt and rubbed his belly. ‘How was your evening?’
    ‘Apart from crawling around in chicken shit, it was fine!’ she replied. ‘Yours?’
    ‘You went there? Yourself?’
    ‘With Darren.’ She shrugged. ‘We’re short staffed. And hey, I like free-range cadavers.’
    He shook his head. Then as he stood up, Cleo thrust an ice-cold vodka Martini, with four olives on a cocktail stick, into his hand. ‘Thought you might be in need of sustenance!’ She gently fended off Humphrey, who was jumping up again.
    ‘You’re amazing!’ Grace sipped the drink gratefully, put the glass down on a shelf and kissed her again, putting his arms around her white towelling bathrobe, holding her firmly but gently, feeling the bulge of their baby against his stomach, smelling her freshly shampooed hair, then took the glass and drank another slug of it. The dog lay on his