Chapter 14

Liz wanted Isaac’s pages. Not a kiss! That’s what he could do for her, turn in his fucking pages. After Isaac saved her from P38, that’s what she wanted most. Not a kiss! But his pages. Isaac couldn’t believe it. How shallow was she? Traumatic events were supposed to be a bonding experience. Did Isaac do something wrong? “I don’t understand,” he complained to her. Why did he save her from certain death if she was going to hassle him for his homework?

The two of them sat in one of the many 24-hour diners off the 10. Liz had driven them in her Prius after Seth failed to come to their rescue or show up at all. The diner resided about halfway between Silver Lake and Isaac’s apartment. Even though they had already ordered food, Isaac continued reviewing the modest all-day breakfast menu, which offered more items on the steak-and-eggs side of the spectrum versus the avocado toast side. This place was perfect, an excellent place to lay low. Wherever Isaac adjusted his weight, the duct tape-dotted vinyl booth squeaked from its broken spring. There probably weren’t a lot of people pinning this place on Instagram.

Liz sat across from Isaac, paranoid, her eyes watching the parking lot through the adjacent window. They had agreed to leave the crime scene without waiting for the police to arrive, deciding that the authorities probably wouldn’t be too receptive to a story about killer cats. To Isaac’s surprise, Liz looked no worse for the wear after her tussle with a mountain lion. All she had to do on the way to the diner was comb her hair out and slap a standard-sized band-aide to her arm. It was a miracle. The incident reminded Isaac of those anecdotes about how tornados can pick up an egg, carry it five miles, and drop it off without a scratch. The incredible, edible egg. He was glad he ordered the three-egg breakfast burrito. He’d like to eat Liz’s eggs, he thought, like one of those lizards that sneak into a bird’s nest while the mother is away.

Isaac shook his head to clear his mind of eggs. “Why does Mr. Lennox want my pages so badly? You can’t rush the creative process.” He wished he could call Seth in for backup, so Liz couldn’t bully him, but Isaac had left his cell phone in his car when he chased Niles. Still, Isaac’s hand kept reaching for his back pocket where his phone would be, a recurring phantom pain.

“So you don’t have the pages?”

“No.” Embarrassed, Isaac looked away from Liz and found an old CRT TV hung from a cob-webbed corner to distract him. A Lakers highlight package played on its screen.

“Why not?”

“Writer’s block,” Isaac said simply, trying his best to impersonate a real screenwriter and obey the only law of the land regarding Los Angeles ambition: fake it until you make it.

“I’m sorry to hear that. I know how difficult it can be,” Liz cooed, turning on the charm. Despite her and Mr. Lennox’s fair warning to Isaac about using writer’s block as an excuse, this was far from the first time she had encountered this issue with screenwriters. “I’d love to help you. Let’s start with this: what inspires you?” In Liz’s experience, the usual answer to writer’s block for men was whiskey, weed, or women, in some combination, and she knew how to procure all three.

On occasion, Mr. Lennox would ask Liz to play the role of muse herself, and she obliged because the word “no” doesn’t exist in a working producer’s vocabulary, even if it means sucking off Sorkin. Sometimes that was how the industry worked, she justified to herself. Besides, it wasn’t as if Liz was doing anything that Nancy, “the throat G.O.A.T.,” Reagan didn’t do to get ahead. (Pun intended.)

“Dreams,” Isaac said in a frank admission. “I get my ideas from dreams. Have you ever heard of the Kublah Khan?”

“Yeah, that’s the club off Sunset, right? I organized a wrap party there once for a Kate Hudson project, so it’s, uh, been a minute, to put it kindly.” Liz continued talking, but Isaac stopped listening. He couldn’t focus his ears because his eyes were demanding too much of his brain’s bandwidth as they concentrated on the gentle curve of Liz’s lips and the dimple in her cheek that flashed on and off while she spoke. “Isaac?”

“What’s that?” Isaac mumbled through a mouthful of breakfast burrito.

Liz sipped her black coffee while she waited for him to stop chewing. “Aside from dreams, how else can we get your creative juices flowing?” To warm Isaac up, she decided to start in on the sexual innuendos, but she wasn’t going to fully offer herself to him until both the whiskey and the weed failed to achieve her desired results. “I have access to an expense account that we can get equally creative with.”

“Can I be honest with you?”

“Of course,” Liz said, reaching across the table to cover his hand with hers. Isaac took the gesture to be one of comfort.

“I don’t know if I can write the pages. I’m really going through a bad time. I’m suffering from an aggressive case of imposter syndrome.”

“You? No. That can’t be,” Liz said dryly enough for Isaac to take the comment at face value.

“Yes, me.” Isaac dropped his chin.

“You’re an excellent writer, Isaac.” Liz lowered her voice, “I actually read your pages. And I’m dying to know what’s next, so sorry if you think I’m riding you a little hard.”

“Oh—” Isaac stammered, “you haven’t been riding me hard at all.”

“If you’ve ever gotten any weird vibes from me, then it’s only because I’m such a big fan. I’ve caught myself daydreaming about what would happen next in your script. I imagine this is what a Londoner felt like when they awaited the next Dickens serial to drop. I can’t imagine what’s in store for that girl with the cat. Can you give me a spoiler?”

“You— you— think I’m like Charles Dickens?”

“Mhmm. Only cuter.” Liz knew she was laying it on extra thick now, but then again, so was Isaac. Nothing seemed to get through to him, and a fresh wave of paranoia crept over her. Could it be Isaac was only playing dumb to lull her into a false sense of security?

“What the fuck?” Isaac scrambled out of the booth and towards the CRT TV. It was a race to turn up the volume before he missed any more of the running news segment that featured a photograph of Jane Furbury. The screen cut to a field reporter who was interviewing a cop. They stood outside the same house that Isaac and Liz fled only moments ago. This time the lawn was vacant, and not a cat was to be found.

“All indications at this time is that a crazed Instagram stalker from a radical animal rights group committed this crime,” the cop began.

Isaac frowned. That seemed like fake news to him unless P38 was in cahoots with the Humane Society. That was possible, he supposed, but was it likely? He wasn’t so sure.

“That was quick,” Liz remarked after appearing at Isaac’s side.

“They said it was an Instagram killer….” Isaac trailed off, letting Liz’s short-term memory fill in the rest of the implications.

“They’re cops.” She shrugged and touched his arm. “Incompetence is sort of on-brand for them. So, I wouldn’t read too much into it.” Except Isaac continued staring at the screen, ignoring and annoying her. “Can I be honest with you?”

He turned to her. “Absolutely.”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

“You’re not a screenwriter.” Time was of the essence, so she decided to change tact, putting the carrot away in favor of the stick. Her frustration had hit its limit. Unfortunately, Isaac’s obtuseness had her off balance, unable to predict any of his moves thus far, and, as a preeminent producer in the industry, she had always prided herself on her ability to anticipate needs, a skill she featured prominently on her resume.

“I’m sorry?” Isaac filled in the awkwardness with a nervous chuckle.

“You’re not a screenwriter. Never were.” Liz crossed her arms. “I know you’re messing around on set, working some sort of angle. I know you think you’re slick as shit and pulling one over on all of us, but you got it backward.”

“What?”

“Are you looking for your predecessor? Was your script some sort of blackmail attempt?”

“Predecessor?” Isaac was dumbfounded.

“The previous screenwriter.”

“Oh. Oh! Oh? What do I want with him? I thought he was medically exhausted and airing-out in a rehab center in Malibu.”

“No,” Liz sighed, “that was a lie to throw to the media. The truth is that there is no screenwriter named Irving Hodges.”

“...”

“Irving Hodges is a pen name. Here.” Liz showed Isaac a picture on her smartphone of a pretty woman who bore more than a passing resemblance to Margot Robbie. Could she be the client who dropped Captain Flapjacks off to Anne? It had to be! He tried to remember if he had seen this face on Anne’s wall of fame before, but his memories were covered in too much fuzz to be helpful, as if Isaac’s brain had rolled under his futon and was left there for food for his resident dust bunnies. “This is the real screenwriter. Her name is Zee Shirley, she’s missing, and it’s my job to find her.”

“So you’re not interested in saving Captain Flapjacks?”

“The cat?” Liz swallowed hard on her hot coffee. “No.”

“Where’d she go?”

“I was hoping you were going to tell me. You’re my last lead.”

“Me? A lead?” Isaac had always wanted to be a lead.

“Don’t give me any of this babe-in-the-woods bullshit, Isaac. Remember, I read your screenplay. Dr. Rousseau may have swallowed that story about a dream, but you were far too specific to make that lie pass my sniff test.”

“Is that why Mr. Lennox hired me? To find your screenwriter? Not because of my talent?”

“We wanted to see what you’d do next, but time’s up. Make your move.”

“Does that mean there won’t be a Super Jesus 3?” Isaac frowned.

“Sure, there will be. The plan is for a trilogy for the trinity, as Mr. Lennox would say, but you won’t be writing it.”

“Who then?”

“Zee, of course, once we find her.”

“I can do it better than her. What about the plot hole where Super Jesus — a Mexican Jew, let me remind you — is revealed to have an uncircumcised dick after he fucks the Maria de Magdalena character? I’d never make that mistake.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” Liz sighed, frustrated. “I’ve never even seen Super Jesus.”

“What? But everyone has seen Super Jesus!”

“Mr. Lennox ordered me not to, stating he wants to keep my eyes virgin, and my perspective fresh on the whole enterprise...” Liz trailed off, not understanding why she explained herself and Mr. Lennox’s experimental methods to this imbecile.

After getting beyond the surface-level reading of their conversation, Isaac muttered to himself, “It happened. For real.” He already suspected his dream was reality, but now he really, really knew it. Any doubt that remained within him disappeared. He could kiss Liz for her validation.

“What happened?”

“My dream.”

Liz stared at Isaac hard, sizing him up. Finally, she relented and slumped her shoulders. Her gamble had come up snake eyes, having misread the situation completely. Her lead was a dead end. She still couldn’t bring herself to believe that Isaac had dreamt it all up. She wasn’t raised to abide by such mysteries, but she did allow herself to believe that Isaac truly believed he had dreamt everything up. He was no different than one of Mr. Lennox’s monkey writers. Maybe Isaac was worse. Isaac wasn’t a monkey so much as he was one of those toy monkeys with the clapping cymbals, but who or what had turned his wind-up key?

“I’ll help you find her,” Isaac suggested.

“In your dreams?” Liz scoffed. “If that’s all you got, what do I need you for? What do you know that I can’t find in your script?”

Isaac thought about what information he had that he could use as leverage. What had he learned since taking on the case of the missing cat? Not much, Isaac was beginning to realize. He did figure out that a famous mountain lion was working with the Birmans, to free them and do their wet work for them, but Liz already knew that. She had seen Jane’s body after all, or what was left of it.

Isaac also knew that Zee, the screenwriter from his dreams, met with Anne before she went missing, but he couldn’t tell Liz. Divulging that morsel of information would require him to betray his client’s confidence, and he didn’t need another curse. What Isaac had left to offer Liz was this: “What do you know about cat power?”

“Cat power?” Liz sighed, frustrated. “Can you say anything within the bounds of normalcy?”

Isaac would have to try another route. “I can dream more dreams,” he pleaded. “Just give me more time to dream.”

“I bet.”

“What did Super Jesus have to say? He was there, you know...”

“Super Jesus is a bit of an unreliable narrator—” Liz cut herself off before revealing anything consequential. She had already said more than enough. Her disappointment in herself mounted. Maybe a trip to a Malibu retreat was needed for herself. She was a mess. Had she suffered a concussion from her tangle with that damned mountain lion? That was the only explanation she could conceive of for why her interrogation of Isaac had gone so poorly. Her head grew woozy and hurt once she thought of Mr. Lennox’s next performance review. She had to get away from Isaac fast. His idiocy was rubbing off on her. “It’s late. You should call yourself an Uber.”

Instead of doing what he was told, Isaac blurted out, “What can you tell me about that crazy blue light that was shooting down from the ceiling of the Annenberg? Is it a tractor beam or more like a ray blast from the Death Star?” But Isaac’s efforts were in vain. She didn’t answer that question or any of his follow-up questions about cat power, the Illuminati, or the vampire stalking Century City. (Or was P38 the vampire all along?)

But Isaac wasn’t disappointed by Liz’s stonewalling. The confirmation that his dream was a reality from someone inside the movie production was more than enough to fan the fire inside him. Still, Liz did her best to rain on his parade by telling him he wasn’t welcome to return to the Super Jesus set unless he had new pages featuring Zee’s whereabouts. Eventually, Isaac agreed to his exile after some more groveling.

When Isaac got home, he fired up the Google machine for background research into Zee Shirley. He found plenty, discovering that the New York holy trinity had profiled her, the New York Times, New York Magazine, and The New Yorker, a rare fate akin to the EGOT. That distinction put her in the company with such luminaries as Fran Lebowitz, Anthony Fauci, and Guy Fieri. But Isaac chose to read the write-up Zee got in Vanity Fair instead.

Zee’s long story made short was that she was a bit of a cliche. She came from a lower-upper-class background, which resulted in the expected ennui, drug abuse, and daddy issues. Hmm, Isaac thought, maybe she was stuck in a sanitarium somewhere. That explanation for her whereabouts would fit about as well as the dress she wore for the photo inset. Zee was gorgeous and could pass for Margot Robbie with little difficulty. Maybe she was hotter.

As Isaac researched more, he discovered the origin of Zee’s pen name. Irving Hodges had been a childhood friend of hers and an apparent fanatic of the New England Patriots, so much so that he committed suicide after the team lost the 2007 Super Bowl, ending their bid for a perfect 19-0 season. After his death, she moved to LA, where she sold her first novel, Truckstop Glory Hole: A Cinderella Story, to considerable acclaim. The rest was history. Zee must have used Irving’s name on the Super Jesus project as a cover and tribute to him.

Isaac’s research was interrupted by Seth, who appeared over Isaac’s shoulder. In his roommate’s hand was a folded-up pizza that threatened to drip oil onto Isaac. Seth used the tip of it to point at Zee’s picture. “Oh, I know that chick.”

“It’s not Margot Robbie,” Isaac said dismissively.

“Who said it was?” Seth scoffed.

Shocked, Isaac spun around in his desk chair, knocking into Seth’s arm, and got showered by the hot pizza grease. He didn’t flinch. “Keep going.”

“You don’t recognize her?” Seth remarked casually, “She goes to Dr. Rousseau’s.”