He looked better as a zombie.
“I saw you at the City Club party the other night,” he said. “I remembered you were the tiger lawyer from the ads on TV.”
“I’m glad they made an impression.” She made a mental note to tell Tony the tiger should stay.
“I wanted to talk to you but you looked like you were in a hurry to leave.” He removed his cap and ran his hand through his thick, dark hair. “I shouldn’t have even been there. My agent thought it might help my image, but as you can imagine, everyone just wanted to talk about the pictures.”
“What pictures?”
Bob pushed his phone across the table. “I’m sure it’s all over the world by now. You know how the press gets when there’s a celebrity scandal.”
Celebrity scandal? Zara’s heart drummed in her chest. This was it. Her first entertainment case with a client she’d brought in herself. Clearly nothing said professional competence like doing beer funnels while dressed as a zombie.
She studied the pictures on Bob’s phone. “Is this . . . ?” She looked closer. Yes. It was the zombie bride who had tried to hook up with Jay. Zara almost felt sorry for her. She could have had a wild night of sex in a limo. Instead, she’d wound up half-naked on a restroom floor with Bob Smith sniffing lines of white powder off her ass.
“It’s in the news, the gossip columns, the blogs . . . everywhere. The utter destruction of my career is online for the world to see.” He spat the words out, thin hands shaking as he pointed to the screen. Method actor. Definitely. If he managed to pull himself out of zombie hell he might actually make it to the B-list.
“That’s me high on zombie dust in the restroom with the gal who was checking coats. She said she wanted to give me a special surprise before we went to the hotel for the after-party. I got a surprise all right. When the producers saw those pictures, they terminated my contracts for Day of the Night of the Evening of the Revenge of the Bride of the Son of the Terror of the Return of the Attack of the Alien, Mutant, Evil, Hellbound, Flesh-Eating, Rotting Corpse Living Dead Parts 7 and 8: In Shocking 4-D. They are even talking about cutting me out altogether and replacing me with a digital zombie. They said it’s a family franchise and they don’t want their lead star to be associated with sex and drugs.” He toyed with his hat. “The whole thing is crazy. I’m a celebrity. What celebrity doesn’t do drugs?”
Zara knew many celebrities who didn’t do drugs, but this wasn’t the time to share. She handed the phone back to Bob. “I’m sorry this happened but—”
“But nothing.” Bob turned his furious gaze on Zara. “I hired J-Tech to take care of security and part of that was making sure no one got into the venue with a phone or recording device. They were supposed to check everybody and make sure all electronic devices were left at the door.”
Jay’s fault? She couldn’t imagine he would make such a serious mistake. He was so careful about everything.
“I went through their screening,” she said. “They were very thorough.”
“Then explain this.” Bob flipped the phone around to show her yet another unflattering picture, this one of him and the zombie bride doing the nasty over the sink. “I’m surprised it wasn’t all over the BBC and other world news. Or maybe it was. I just can’t read any other languages.”
Zara doubted that a D-list celebrity with only a few credits to his name—one of them a failed kids’ TV pilot about a superhero who had opened a microwave too soon and thereafter could transform himself into a bowl of soup—would be of interest to the BBC, but she wasn’t as plugged into the celebrity world as Bob.
“My career is ruined,” Bob spat out. “Day of the Night of the Evening—that’s what we call the film because frankly the title is a mouthful—was going to be as big as the Marvel Universe. There could have been sequels and spin-offs and spin-offs of the spin-offs. And what about merchandising? My character could have been on everything from T-shirts to fuzzy blankets to those cute slippers that squeak when kids walk. I could have been immortalized in plastic. Maybe even wax. I should have just paid the blackmail money.”
Zara’s heart almost stopped in her chest. “Jay blackmailed you?”
“The dude who took the pictures got my e-mail address and tried to blackmail me for five hundred thousand dollars. I don’t know who it is, but he clearly knows nothing about show business or how little we get paid. It was so ridiculous, my agent thought he was bluffing so we told him to take a hike, and look what happened. I called the police and they said there was little chance of finding him because everything was online.”
“We have a good investigator,” Zara said. “We’ll do our best to find him and bring him to justice so he doesn’t do this to anyone else.”
“Justice?” Bob snorted. “I don’t give a damn about justice. This business is all about reputation and now I’ve got none. Zilch. My name is dirt in the zombie world. I can’t even be a children’s entertainer. No one will hire me now.” His snort became a snarl. “I need to make up that lost income. I’ve gotten used to living a certain lifestyle, and I’m not gonna give it up just because I was having a little fun. I definitely want to go after the blackmailer, but since the police were so sure I’d never find him, I was thinking I should go after J-Tech. After all, it’s their fault. If they hadn’t let the dude in with his phone, I wouldn’t be in this mess. They’re a national company. I’m sure they have deep pockets. I want to sue them for everything they’ve got. I could have made millions, maybe even billions if zombie toys became the next big thing.”
Zara felt sick to her stomach. It was just her luck that her very first entertainment law case with a real-life celebrity had to be against the man who had introduced her to the client in the first place—the man who claimed he loved her. How could she betray Jay by turning that kindness back on him? And how could she act against J-Tech knowing that the company couldn’t afford to get involved in a lawsuit? It would be the end of Jay’s dream.
On the other hand, a high-profile lawsuit would secure her future in the firm and give her a foot in the door to the entertainment industry.
“How do you know Jay?” she asked, stalling for time. “I thought you two were friends.”
“Our moms went through cancer treatment at the same time at the same hospital.” He put his hat back on, tucking a few rogue curls under the band. “You get to know the people supporting the people when you’re there all the time. He told me if I ever needed security for an event, I should give him a call. So that’s what I did. After the filming was done, I offered to host the wrap party because I heard Keanu Reeves does that kind of thing and I fucking love Keanu.”
She nodded in agreement. “Who doesn’t?”