John Scalzi - Agent to the Stars

About halfway there, on Melrose, I realized that I was actually being tailed. A white Escort three cars behind me remained three cars behind me constantly; whenever one of the cars between us changed lanes, the Escort would swerve dangerously into another lane, let another car pass, and then swerve dangerously back into the lane, properly spaced. The constant honking that these maneuvers caused were what brought the car to my attention in the first place. In a way it was a relief — if it had been the Government or Mafia hit men, they wouldn't have been so inept.

I was coming up at a light; I purposely slowed down to miss the yellow — the first time that I could recall ever doing that — and when the light turned red I took the car out of gear, set the parking brake, popped the trunk, switched on my hazard lights and got out of the car. I reached into the trunk just as the driver behind me, in a rusted-out Monte Carlo, started yelling at me in Spanish. He stopped when he realized I pulled out an aluminum softball bat, left over from last season.

The guy in the white Escort didn't even see me coming; as I walked down the road, he was furtively talking into a cellular phone. The guy's white, pudgy features became recognizable as I got closer. It was Van Doren, of course.

I stopped at the driver-side window, flipped the bat around so I was holding the thick end, and rapped hard on the window with the handle end. Van Doren jumped at the noise and looked around, confused. It took him about five seconds to realize exactly who it was banging at his door. He spent another three seconds trying to figure out how to make a break for it before he realized he was boxed in. Finally, he smiled sheepishly and rolled down the window.

"Tom," he said, "isn't this a small world."

"Get out of your car, Jim," I said.

Van Doren's eyes made a beeline for the bat. "Why?"

"As long as you're following me, you're a danger to other motorists," I said. "I can't have anyone's death but yours on my conscience."

"I think I'll stay in my car," Van Doren said.

"Jim," I said, "If you don't get out of the car in exactly three seconds, I'm going to take this bat to your windshield."

"You wouldn't dare," Van Doren said. "You've got a whole street full of witnesses."

"This is LA, Jim," I said. "No one's going to whip out a camcorder unless I'm wearing a badge. One. Two."

Van Doren hastily opened his door and undid his seat belt.

"All right," I said, once he had gotten out of his car. "Let's go. We'll take my car."

"What about my car?" Van Doren said. "I can't just leave it here."

"Sure you can," I said. "The police will come by any minute now to pick it up."

"Please," Van Doren said. "I can't . It's a company car."

"Should've thought of that earlier. Come on, Jim. Less talk. More walk. The light's changed already." I nudged him with my bat. He went. We got in my car and made it through the tail end of the next yellow, thus restoring my traffic karmic balance.

Van Doren watched as his Escort faded in the distance. "I want you know, this qualifies as kidnapping," he said.

"What are you talking about," I said. "There I was, at a light, minding my own business, when you open my passenger side door and plop yourself into my car. You started asking me harassing questions. A real pain in the ass. But, of course, you've done this before. You left six messages at office just today, in fact. I'm driving you around just to humor you. After all, you are acting erratic. If anyone's in danger here, Jim, it's me."

"You're forgetting the witnesses again," Van Doren said.

"Oh, come on ," I said, getting into a left turn lane. "Anyone who was there has now gotten out from behind your car and driven off into the sunset. The only thing anyone's going to see is a deserted car in the middle of a major traffic artery. If I were you, Jim, I'd start making up a cover story right about now. Normally, I'd suggest saying you were carjacked, but no one's going to believe that. You were driving an Escort ."

Van Doren stared at me for a few seconds, then buckled himself in, almost as an afterthought. "I think I was right," he said. "You are completely off your rocker."

I sighed and turned north. "No, Jim, but I am tired of you. Your story about me was a tissue of lies from start to finish. It caused two of my most important clients to bolt. There's not a single thing in it that's true, and you caused my career a lot of damage. I could probably sue you and The Biz for libel and get away with it."

"You'd have a hard time proving malice," Jim said.

"I don't think so," I said. "After all, you did come looking to profile me, and then, after I refused, this thing came out. Given the amount of utter bullshit that floats to the surface of your magazine each week, I think a good lawyer could probably convince a jury you were gunning for me. Bet our lawyers are better than your lawyers."

"Why are you threatening me?"

"Simple. I want you to leave me alone. I haven't ever done anything to you, or anything other than try to be the best agent for my clients. I don't use crack cocaine. I don't have sex with little boys. I don't cut up animals for fun. There's no story, Jim. Just leave me alone."

"Well, there's one problem here, Tom," Van Doren said. "I don't believe you. Maybe you're not losing it, though I doubt that at the moment. But you are up to something, and something weird." He held up a hand and started ticking off points. "First, my boss got a phone call from the Times this morning about your 'mentor program.' They say Carl Lupo said that this program has been in place for a while. But I know for a fact that this isn't the case — my guy inside your company told me so."

"This wouldn't be the same 'inside guy' who used your story to snake one of my clients, would it?"

"I don't know anything about that," Jim said. "Though I have heard you broke another agent's nose the other day."

"It's not broken," I said. "Merely bruised."

"Second," Van Doren continued, "you had lunch with Carl Lupo today for over three hours. Three hours, Tom. The last time Carl Lupo did lunch for three hours, he joined Century Pictures as their president. Something is definitely up between the two of you."

"You watched us for three hours, having lunch?" I said. "Jim, you need to get a life."

Van Doren cracked a smile. "This may be so. Or maybe I have a life, chasing the biggest story in Hollywood, one that will actually get me away from writing lousy little pieces about agents that no one really cares about. You could just make it easy for me and tell me what it is, and then I'll leave you alone."

"Fine," I said. "Carl and I are laying the groundwork for an encounter between humans and space aliens. He even went up to their ship. I've got one of them boarding with me at home. His best friend is a dog."

"Uh-huh," Van Doren said. "I'm buying that one. A spaceship. Was Elvis there with Jim Morrison and Tupac Shakur?"

"Of course not," I said. "That's just plain silly."

"Right. I don't mind if you don't tell me, Tom," Van Doren said. "Just don't expect me not to follow it up. Something's going on and I'm going to find it out. I work for a shitty magazine, but I'm not a shitty journalist. I'm actually good at what I do, whatever you might think."

"If you're so good, how come you did such a bad job of tailing me just now?"

"Oh, that," Van Doren said, smiling again "I'm just a really bad driver."

I pulled over. Van Doren looked around. "Where are we?"

"The place where you get out of my car," I said.

"You're just going to leave me here?" he asked.

"Well, you didn't think I'd actually take you where I was going, did you?" I said.