The Second Assistant by Clare Naylor, Mimi Hare

little. While it was clear that I was not going to be fired after all, if my boss got the boot, then I might be out of a job anyway. I had been fielding calls from just about everyone and had run out of all the usual “He was on the line a minute ago, but he got cut off going through a canyon”–type excuses and was feeling desperate. I riffled through Lara’s book, but all I could see, apart from a lot of cryptic-looking red triangles on the corner of the pages, which were obviously code for something fascinating, was that Mia Wagner was at Canyon Ranch spa until tomorrow. Fuck, maybe that wasn’t his wife who’d answered his cell. Maybe he’d OD’d at home or been murdered by a cult. This was California after all. All I knew was that I had to find him, dead or alive, by one o’clock because he had a lunch with Steven at the Four Seasons, and that was nonnegotiable. I knew that last month Scott had gone out of his way to get invited to a bar mitzvah where Steven was, and then he’d had to be very oleaginous to secure this lunch. There was no way on earth, if he was alive or sentient, that he would miss it.
    I picked up yet another call and armed myself with excuses.
    “Scott Wagner’s office.”
    “Lara?”
    “No, this is Elizabeth,” I said with forced cheeriness.
    “Where the fuck is Lara?”
    “Who is this, please?” The man sounded breathless and a bit psychopathic.
    “It’s me. Scott, for Chrissake.”
    “Thank God for that.” I couldn’t conceal my relief.
    “I need to be picked up.”
    “Okay. Where are you?”
    “The Milk Maid, South Fairfax!” he barked. “Someone stole my car, and I have this fucking lunch with Steven. So get it done now. And for fuck’s sake don’t mention this to anyone!”
    “Sure,” I said efficiently, but he’d already hung up. I grabbed my keys and the Thomas Guide out of the drawer and hurried, as casually as possible, to the elevator.
    When I finally pulled up outside 398 South Fairfax, I wondered if I’d gotten the address right. This whole time I’d assumed that TheMilk Maid was an organic restaurant and that Scott had been having a breakfast meeting and been unlucky enough to have his car stolen. But there wasn’t a strawberry smoothie or healthy raisin muffin in sight at this joint. This was a sleazy motel. Probably built in the late seventies. It was one of those drive-by pit stops where you have to check the sheets for pubic hairs and worry all night long that somebody, maybe even the manager, is going to rob you. What on earth was Scott doing here? I parked in the lot, made certain to lock my doors, and followed the half-blinking neon sign to reception.
    “Hi, I’m looking for Scott Wagner’s room.” I took a careful look around. “I think.”
    “Room ninety-one. Second on the left. Tell him he owes me for two nights ’cause it’s after eleven,” the skanky young guy on the desk spit. I nodded and practically ran down the sticky brown carpet toward Room 91.
    I knocked tentatively on the dirt-ingrained door. “Scott. It’s me.”
    “What?” The door opened a crack, and there was Scott. Not, I have to say, looking über-thrilled to see me.
    “Are you okay?” I asked as I edged my way out of the corridor and into the dimly lit hellhole of a room.
    “What are you doing here?”
    “You called me. Said you wanted to be picked up.” I wondered if he’d finally crossed the line from recreational drug user into incomprehensible weirdo junkie.
    “Where’s the car?”
    “Down there.” I pointed out the window at my Honda, looking very vulnerable in the parking lot below. Scott seemed really spun out.
    “I asked for a car. A Mercedes. A limo. I meant to send a driver.”
    “And here I am.” Fake cheery thing again.
    “Did you bring any clothes?” I noticed then that he was wearing a very small, balding white towel.
    “Clothes? No. Was I supposed to?” Jesus, the least I expected was a little gratitude. I’d stuck my neck out for