Hidden Bodies (32 page)

Fuck Dave. He was supposed to say,
yes, sir
and Cath was supposed to be wrong and I was supposed to call a cab, request a wheelchair, get to the marina, grab the keys from Dave. I
can’t believe I didn’t make a backup plan. I have a two-hundred-pound failed character actor in a soundproof box and right now, he’s pissing himself in his sleep.

Love texts:
hello?
☹

I
twisted my ankle on the run home. That’s my story anyway. I took Tylenol, which is why I’m not drinking, and I’m limping and
I’m not myself. Love insists that I come to the Office with everyone even though I’m a mess. She won’t take no for an answer, and the Office is surreal, a bar on the beach, in the
sand. We sit at a long table. A tsunami could take us at any moment and Love tells me to relax.

“This is Mexico,” she says. “You can get beheaded or kidnapped or shot or mugged or swept away by a riptide, but come on, Joe. A
tsunami
?” She laughs. “I
don’t think so. Though I appreciate your imagination.”

That’s my dark little girl and I look out at the Pacific that took Delilah so completely, so willingly. She helps me even when she doesn’t know it. Mexico is the murder capital of
the world, the land of shallow graves and dead bodies. Fuck you, ocean. Fuck you, Captain Dave. I don’t need a boat. All I need is a shovel.

LOVE
got drunk at the Office. I left her in bed along with a note that my ankle was feeling better so I went for a walk to stretch it out.
She’ll never know that I left at 4:42
A.M.
or that I stopped off at that big house, the one where they’re doing the most construction. None of the workers were
there yet and I roamed around the lot, checking out the nails, and planks of wood, the slabs of marble, the cement mixers. I went around back and saw that they’re building an infinity pool.
And it wasn’t the worst idea, Fincher resting,
in infinity.

But now that I’m at Axl’s house, I know I have to do better. This is rock ’n‘ roll. This is time
frozen and so many people out there have so many keys. Fincher has to stay here. I can’t be dragging him all over the neighborhood. I mean, yes, it’s
Mexico
but Mexico is like
LA. There are so many different parts of it. This isn’t the area where you can casually behead people and drop them off in a neighboring pool. I have to be discreet. I’ll be sweating
today because of that fucker. For now though, it’s time for him to learn a lesson. I’m rummaging through his duffel bag. The contents alone are reason enough to kill him. He brought
headshots
and
five-pound weights
and condoms and Jimmy Buffett T-shirts (tags on, asshole) and banana hammocks. Didn’t he get the memo that this was
work
? But
that’s not even the bad part. The bad part is that Robin Fincher keeps an old-fashioned secretarial Rolodex of celebrity encounters. I’m serious. He bought this thing at Staples and I
can just picture him in line on his day off. This Rolodex is jammed with home addresses of famous people. When I get back to LA, I can now visit
Cruise, Tom
if I want or my latest
alter-ego,
Fox, Megan.
And again I say, that’s not even the bad part. Turn over an index card, and shit gets real.

Fincher clearly started this project ten years ago, when he joined the force. Some of his references are dated—
Pattinson, Robert. Told him that I loved Water for Elephants and that he
and Reese seem like they’re meant for each other. He seemed like the real deal, salt of the earth, more British than you expect him to be. Tell agent to send him reel.

Yes, Fincher has dutifully catalogued his celebrity encounters, all of which happened while he was supposed to be protecting and serving. He has a simple routine. He pulls over celebrities to
talk to them and kiss ass. Sometimes his notes are self-interested—
Piven, J. Pulled over for jaywalking. Friendly, funny. They say he’s a jerk but he was cool to me. Seemed genuine.
Says to call his manager next week. Says he has a feeling about me, says I need new headshots.

Sometimes his notes are sad—
Aniston, Jennifer. Said thank you for letting her know about robberies in neighborhood. Told me to stay hydrated. Sweet!

And sometimes they’re downright disturbing, like when he told
Adams, Amy
that someone ran over the neighbor-up-the-street’s dog.

So you get the idea. Robin Fincher, who alleges to be so protective of California, is in fact, a level ten Celebrity Stalker. I turn on the microphone.

“Hey,” I say. “Wake up.”

I can be loud when I need to be and Fincher rolls over and sits up and blinks. When he sees me, he bolts for the glass. He bounces off it, then, undeterred, body slams it again and again. I put
my feet up and ignore him and continue to work my way through his Rolodex. The idiot is so busy trying to shatter unbreakable glass that he doesn’t even seem to realize that I found his
secret stash. When he finally exhausts himself and kneels on the floor panting, I turn on the mic again.

“Sit up,” I say. “Well, first pick up the microphone. Then sit.”

He takes the microphone and he hasn’t learned anything yet. He starts by ranting at me that he’s a cop—as if I didn’t know this—that he’s an American—as
if I’m not—that he’s gonna see to it that I wind up behind bars—as if he’s in a position to do this.

“Listen to me,” I say. “It’s not too late to make things right.”

His nostrils flare. “Where’s Meg?”

Wow. I don’t respond to that, it’s too fucking pathetic. I pick up a card from his Rolodex. “I’m gonna ask you a question.”

“She’s supposed to be here,” he says, not listening.

“Fincher,” I interrupt. “I’m Megan Fox.”

He storms the glass again and I have to let him work it out, kick, punch, kick. He settles down, screams. When I think that’s it for now, I continue. “As I was saying, you can make
things right by telling the truth. It’s pretty simple. I just want you to explain some of your choices.”

When he ticketed me for jaywalking, Robin Fincher repeatedly reminded me that I had made a
choice
to jaywalk. And he’s right. I did. But now I know that he made a lot of bad
choices himself.

I spin his Rolodex and land on
Heigl, Katherine
. I take her card and turn it over and I see that he approached her at Little Dom’s, a restaurant in Los Feliz. He told her that she
had some fans getting aggressive out front and that she would be wiser to go out the back. He says she was
pretty, grateful, took a selfie with me, said she’ll follow me on
Instagram.
I pick up the mic. “So, does Katherine Heigl follow you on Instagram?”

“Put that down.” Fincher stares at the Rolodex. His eyes are a ride in a theme park, two beady little balls to hell. “That’s police business.”

“Really?” I ask. “Because unless there’s a special division dedicated exclusively to stopping imaginary celebrity crimes, I’d say this feels more like personal
stuff to me.”

“You have no right to look at that.” I laugh. He doesn’t. “I have eyes on a lot of people. That’s not my only file.”

“I’m sure,” I say. “Anyway, did she follow you on Instagram?”

“She was very nice.” He sidesteps. “Listen, you sick fuck, this is a big mistake.”

“Robin,” I say. “Do you know you could go to jail for this?”

“Put it down.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I ask. “Why would you ever bring this on a
plane
?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“It is now,” I say. “As a concerned citizen, I have every right to look out for my fellow countrymen. This is a breach.”

“Tell me what you want,” he pleads. “Just put it down and tell me what you want.”

“What do I want?”

“Anything,” he says. “This is crazy. You gotta let me out of here.”

That’s not happening and he should realize that and I ignore him and I spin through his Rolodex and thank God that I am me, that I didn’t get sick like this, that I don’t covet
imaginary friends and pry into places where I don’t belong. What a dreadful existence, to be the man in possession of this Rolodex.

“Fincher,” I say. “You do realize that these things are supposed to have the names and numbers of people who know you too?”

“Fuck you.”

I shake my head. They always get like that when you reach the truth. The way a fish nips at the bait after circling. Robin is breaking. Biting. He is boiling down to his
fuck you
self.
This is his mug of urine, his mistake, and his is infinitely worse than mine. His mug of piss may not contain his DNA, but it reveals so much more, his demented ego, his emotional core. He’s
no different from a thirteen-year-old girl writing a letter to Justin Timberlake, thinking he might write back. Fincher’s Rolodex is a motherfucking hope chest.

“Robin,” I say. “Was Eddie Murphy making a big mistake when he didn’t think it was funny that you pulled him over for having a banana in his tailpipe.”

Robin turns red. “Stop it.”

I shake my head. “I just think
Beverly Hills Cop
was a long time ago and he’s probably a busy guy, you know? He probably had somewhere he had to be. Do you think it was a
great choice as an aspiring actor? Did you think he would find you
funny
?”

“Stop it,” he says. He pumps his fists and you can tell he’s used to carrying a weapon.

“You know you’re supposed to be looking for
Delilah
,” I remind him. “You just
swore
to me that you were gonna find her, but you, motherfucker, you took
off to Cabo three days later. And we both know you only tracked me down because I was on a
set.
” I laugh. “You actually had me scared a little. Your whole bad cop demeanor and
the way you were sniffing around about me, threatening me, stealing my headphones.”

“As if you didn’t steal them first,” he says, eyes blazing.

“Of course I did,” I reveal. And he smirks, as if he figured something out, as if he won. “But what you don’t realize is that I stole them from Henderson when I killed
him.”

Fincher starts to turn purple. “You sick fuck.”

I sigh. “Says the man who travels with a Rolodex of celebrities’ addresses. Do you know what would happen if this got into the wrong hands? I mean, not that you’ll be around to
deal with the consequences.”

He’s on his feet now, and he throws the ice bucket at the glass. He throws one water bottle, then the other. He falls to his knees and he’s not crying because I’m going to kill
him. Oh, sure, you assume that because he’s locked in a cage and about to die—but Robin Fincher is crying because all he ever wanted was for this Rolodex to be his, truly. He wanted to
be buddies with these people. He wanted Katherine Heigl to follow him on Instagram—he even noted with an asterisk on the back,
friends call her Katie
—and he’s crying
because none of that is going to happen.

He will never be friends with
Katie Heigl.
And in spite of all the red carpet events he crashed with his uniform—you should see this picture of him at an
Oblivion
event
where he’s with Tom Cruise and the security guards in back look like they’re gonna fucking kill him—well, the point is, Fincher met a lot of people. But that was it. You
can’t have a conversation with an autograph and you can’t go out to lunch with a group selfie and no matter how grateful Julia Roberts is that you alerted her to some problems with the
elevator in the Chateau—
bullshit, bullshit
—she is only going to close the door and lock it because she doesn’t fucking know you, Robin Fincher.

Now he wants me to leave him alone. But we’re not done yet. “Oh come on,” I say. “This Rolodex is
thick.
I mean, we haven’t even gotten to
Efron,
Zac
.”

“Stop it,” he says. “I mean it.”

“No,” I say. “We’re gonna get to the bottom of some of these choices. Same way I acknowledged my bad choice when I crossed the street. Yes, I have authority issues. I
concede that I should have waited for the
walk
signal, Robin. I can be a punk. I am a little fucking New York that way and you were right and I accepted my responsibility.”

He cries. “Please let me go, please, please.”

I flip over
Crawford, Cindy.
He punches the glass. “Stop it!”

“Wow,” I say. “You really think she was flirting with you? Because I don’t know, Robin. I’m gonna guess that she was trying to get out of a ticket.”

“Stop it.”

“That’s what is so great about your stories,” I tell him. “You don’t even understand who you are, Robin. You’re a police officer.”

“Fuck you.”

“An officer of the law.”

“Fuck you.”

“These people are just like me,” I say, and I point to his Rolodex. “All of us, we’re just trying to get out of a ticket. Don’t you get that?”

He spits. I point to him. “You cop,” I say. I point at myself. “Me citizen.” I do it again, repeating that Tom Cruise is like me, a citizen, and that Jennifer Aniston is
like me, a citizen. He screams and shakes like a monkey and I won’t let up. “No, no, no,” I say. “You chose to be a cop and you don’t get to be a cop slash actor
because you can’t
be
a cop and an actor and deep down you know this or you would have
gone
for it, Robin. You would have taken your classes and waited tables and dedicated
your
life
to your dream, but no. You knew he didn’t have it. And this is life, you fucking shithead. You don’t get to be anything
slash
anything.”

“You don’t know,” he whimpers. “That Chinese guy, the one from
The Hangover
, he was a
doctor
before he got into the business.”

I look at this sad man, comparing himself to a brilliant comedic actor. The pure absence of self-awareness is enough to kill me. “Fincher,” I say. “Ken Jeong is talented.
You’re not.”

“Fuck you.”

“That’s why Ken Jeong tried to break into the business the old-fashioned way, the honest way,” I explain. “He quit being a doctor to become an actor. You’re a cop.
These people in here, they all have talent. You don’t.”