Angels on Sunset Boulevard (12 page)

“Listen, Taj, I'm sorry about the other night. That was totally rude of me. Please tell your uncle I feel like an asshole.”

“You were an asshole,” Taj said. “But that's okay. You were upset about your sister.”

“Friends?”

“Of course.”

It was funny. They'd only known each other for what—a week? And already it felt so comfortable to be around him. She hadn't felt this way about a guy since—well, since Johnny. For a moment she felt guilty for a reason she didn't want to think about. She wasn't technically cheating on Johnny, after all. And besides, he was the one who had all those other girls.

Taj put down her cookie. She wiped her mouth carefully with a damp napkin. “I was thinking about what you said the other night, and I wanted to apologize. I
know you thought I was being weird, so—”

He interrupted her. “I did some digging around. My friend Eric, who's a computer nerd, found some stuff. Did you know TAP is owned by Werner Music Group? You know, WMG?”

“You mean they bought it from YourPage.”

“No, Eric said it's the opposite—they set up YourPage to back TAP.”

“Really?” Taj asked, taking another cookie and not looking at him. “Huh. I always thought it was those two guys that started it—Mark and Jim … Jim's cute.” Taj shrugged. “But for all we know they could be actors …”

“You know, Werner Music is one of the biggest labels around, if not the biggest,” Nick said. Half the world's most popular music was distributed by the company. It had a finger in every musical pie—from hardcore rap to down-home country to everything in between.

“It's not Sutton Werner, is it? I heard his dad is some music mogul,” Taj said innocently.

“Yeah, his dad's the biggest deal in the music industry. You know, his grandfather started the company. He discovered Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin … and his dad managed Jeff Buckley and Nirvana. Sutton grew up here, in L.A., the Palisades. His family
moved to New York and he transferred to Bennet just this year. I heard he'd been kicked out of a couple schools—Choate, St. Lawrence, Harvard-Westlake. Anyway, I always thought he was a bit of a twerp. You?” he asked. “What do you know about Sutton?”

Taj slouched on the counter, breaking the cookie in half. “The same as everyone. Not much.” She looked like she was going to evade the question again, but she kept talking. “Actually, he was Johnny's manager.”

“No way. Sutton?”

“Yeah. He—he approached Johnny. When Johnny first put up his songs online, Sutton sent him an e-mail, telling him he could help him, you know, with his career and stuff. He was always very professional.”

“And he throws those TAP parties. So it all goes back to him,” Nick said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, everyone knows they're Sutton's parties, right?”

“I guess.” Taj shrugged. “We didn't know that at first.”

“We?”

“Johnny and me. But then when he asked Johnny to play several of the parties, we kind of figured out that he was behind the whole thing.”

“How'd you guys meet anyway?”

“Me and Sutton?”

“No, you and Johnny,” Nick asked.

“Online.”

“Of course.”

“It wasn't like that,” Taj said, blushing. “I don't meet guys online. It's not my thing.”

“Only in front of locked doors?” Nick asked, teasing.

“Right.”

“So was Johnny some homeschooled genius? That's what TAP always said.”

“Homeschooled? Johnny?” Taj laughed. “He's from Van Nuys. He went to Van Nuys High till he dropped out.”

“Really. I always thought he was some kind of music savant.”

“No—” Then Taj caught herself. “I mean, he was. But not that kind. He was pretty ordinary. He just played up that part—you know, Johnny Silver, artiste. Mr. Sensitive. But he was a pretty normal kid. Except when it came to music. Johnny was crazy about music.”

“You think he's alive?”

“He's got to be. I mean, he's seventeen years old. You know? And famous. If he were dead, we'd hear about it, right?”

Nick nodded.

Taj took his hand. “What about your sister? Anything?”

Nick shook his head. “Nothing. I just wish she'd call. I'm sure she's fine. I mean, Fish is a pretty savvy kid. She can handle herself.”

“I'm sure she'll turn up,” Taj said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I'm sure she's fine.”

THE HUNTINGTON FAMILY BRUNCH AT THE IVY AT
the Shore was a tradition that went back all the way to the mid-nineties, when his father first cracked the box office top ten with an action thriller. Since then, every family celebration—graduation, birthday, anniversary—was spent at the illustrious café. Huntington père preferred the more casual, laid-back Ivy in Santa Monica rather than the showier one in West Hollywood; as befitted a producer, he preferred to be behind the scenes rather than in front of the camera. Besides, no one would recognize him anyway, and he would be brushed aside in favor of one of the starlets he employed.

“Stars—they have no money,” Nick's dad was fond of saying. His other favorite saying was “Stars—they're employees,” with a derision honed from more than a decade's worth of producing summer blockbusters, hiring and firing actors and actresses at will.

Nick's father was the picture of the L.A. mogul: tanned, fit, dressed casually in a white Polo shirt and scruffy jeans. His stepmother, Evelyn, was the polished California career woman at rest in her pastel Richard Tyler ensemble.

There was nothing to celebrate. Fish was technically still missing, although David and Evelyn didn't seem too concerned; they had somehow convinced themselves this was just another prank Fish was playing—another cry for attention—or perhaps they were in deep throes of denial. Nick couldn't decide. He took a sip of the overpriced lemonade and looked from one parent to the other warily.

“I fired Rosa this morning,” Evelyn suddenly announced, after the waiter had taken their round of orders.

“Why?” Nick asked.

“She was stealing from me.”

“Rosa?” Nick was aghast. The Guatemalan housekeeper had been with them for years. She was not only a trusted member of the family, but the children's main caretaker.

“I couldn't believe it either. But there was stuff
missing …” Evelyn shrugged. “Nothing too expensive, thank God. But pieces of jewelry. Money from my wallet. I would never have noticed except I needed cash to tip my hairdresser the other day, and I knew I had sixty dollars in my wallet, but it was gone. Anyway, who else would take it?”

Nick crinkled his brow. Something didn't add up. For the past few days, Citibank had left several messages for a “Pish Langley”—they were still trying to get a hold of Fish for some reason.

“That reminds me,” his father said. “Has anyone seen my Patek Philippe? I had it out the other day and I can't seem to find it. It's very odd.”

“No, haven't seen it,” Nick said.

“Rosa. I'm telling you. You can never trust the help. Not even if they've been with you for twenty years. It's such a shame.” Evelyn sighed. “The Patek that Nicole sent you for Christmas?”

“Yes.” David grumbled. “Actors,” he said in his usual dismissive tone. “Still. It's a twenty-thousand-dollar watch.”

Nick suddenly realized he hadn't seen his own watch in a long time. Not to mention, small bills had been disappearing from his wallet every once in a while. He'd chalked it up to bad math on his part, but the other day he could have sworn he had a hundred-dollar
bill in there, and it was just gone the next morning.

But he couldn't believe Rosa was responsible for any of it.

Suddenly he remembered how Fish always seemed to need money. She'd asked for a fifty before the party and she'd been complaining for weeks before then about how she never got enough allowance. What would she need the money for? he wondered. She had everything she could ever want— neither David nor Evelyn was stingy in that direction. If anything, they erred in spoiling the kids too much. If she'd needed more money she should have asked for a bigger allowance.

But maybe she couldn't ask for a bigger allowance, because she needed money fast, and soon. And maybe she'd needed more money than a raise in her allowance could provide. But for what?

“Can you imagine,” Evelyn was saying. “A thief! In our house!” She shuddered.

THE NEXT DAY, AT THE STATION, TAJ GOT A PHONE
call from Nick.

“Wanna hear Johnny's song again?” she asked.

“No, I'm not calling for a request.”

“Oh,” Taj said. She wasn't sure what he wanted, then.

“Listen, there's been all this weird stuff going on. I don't know why I'm telling you, but I feel like I have to tell somebody, and you seem to know a lot about this TAP stuff.”

“I told you, I don't know anything about TAP. It was just some site where I met Johnny, that's all.”

“Will you listen?”

“Of course,” Taj said. “What's up?”

“There's been, like, a bunch of stuff missing from the house.” He told her about Evelyn's suspicions of Rosa, but how he couldn't believe it. “Little things, and some things only members of the family know about. I mean, could it be possible she's been sneaking back in the house and taking things?”

“Who? Fish?”

“Yeah. Is that weird? I mean, if she was home, why wouldn't she let us know?”

“What's been missing?”

“Oh, stuff, like my money clip and my dad's Patek Philippe.”

Taj's ears pricked. Patek Philippe? She remembered Div talking about some insanely expensive watch Deck had received in the mail through TAP.

“Do you know any reason why a thirteen-year-old kid would need all this money?”

“Do you know about the gifting?” Taj asked before she could stop herself.

“The what?”

“Nothing,” Taj said.

“C'mon, Taj. Spill it. Please. It's my sister I'm talking about here.”

“All right,” Taj said reluctantly. “There's this gifting thing—the wish lists—on TAP.”

“What are you talking about?”

Taj told him. The rules, the hierarchy. How Div
and Deck received tons of gifts every week, how Johnny had been raking it in by the busload.

“But why would Fish … ,” Nick said. Then the color drained from his face. His sister, the misfit, suddenly finding herself with a bunch of friends. He remembered one of Fish's new friends asking her if her “order” had come in; Fish had meekly asked her what her size was. Fish was buying friendship through TAP.

“Because she wanted to fit in, because she wanted to belong—that's why,” Nick said, answering his own question. “And she was so insecure she would pay to be accepted.”

“God,” Taj said. She suddenly felt ill. She'd never thought of it that way, but of course that was what happened: The kids on the bottom, kids like Fish who didn't have enough friends to provide them with stuff, and who always had to kick up to their TAP “sponsors”—they would get behind, and getting behind meant humiliation on TAP. Then exorcism. Blackball.

“Taj, I need to ask you again. What goes on in that back room?” Nick said.

“You really want to know?”

“Yeah.”

“You still think it has something to do with that? Because honestly, Nick, it doesn't.”

“I just have to see for myself.”

“Okay There's another TAP party on Friday. I'll take you with me so you can see for yourself.”
What could it hurt?
Taj thought. Maybe it could even be a little bit fun.

FRIDAY NIGHT, JUST AS TAJ HAD PROMISED, WAS
another TAP event. This one was in another empty mansion, this time in the Truesdale Estates. Taj told Nick she would meet him there, and he waited by the kitchen to see her.

There. Once again he was taken aback by how beautiful she was. She'd put her hair back in a low chignon, and her green eyes glittered in the dark light.

“Hey. Sorry I'm late. This place has, like, two kitchens, apparently,” she said.

“No worries.”

“So, are you sure you're ready for this?”

“Yeah. I want to know.”

“Okay, follow me. And remember, when they ask, it's Ambrose Bierce.”

“The Devil's Dictionary?”

“Very good. I'm surprised you haven't been Tapped.”

“What's that?”

“You'll see.”

They made their way to the designated backroom area. The kid with the flashlight, this time one with a shaved head and a goatee, shone a light in their faces.

“What's the word?”

“Ambrose Bierce,” they chorused.