Diagnosis Murder 3 - The Shooting Script by Lee Goldberg Read Free Book Online Page B

And he saw the buildings that housed the major talent and management agencies, which swarmed like blood-thirsty mosquitoes over the biggest stars, feeding on their obnoxiously bloated salaries ten percentage points at a time.
    It was a far different view than he'd had ten short years ago, when his office was in downtown Los Angeles, the epicenter of urban decay, a short walk away from the Criminal Courts Building. His client list then was a who's who of nobodies. He represented rapists, burglars, hookers, drug dealers, car thieves, and gang members. There was always plenty of work, even if it didn't pay all that well.
    But then a couple of hookers Tyrell represented got arrested in a Van Nuys motel room, where they happened to be sharing a bed with Nick Drago, one of the teenage stars of the suburban teen angst drama Model Homes .
    It was seeing that kid, sitting miserably in a holding cell, that Tyrell had a revelation: Celebrities are afflicted with the same vices, lusts, and stupidity as everybody else. They just have a lot more money to spend on keeping themselves out of jail.
    Tyrell offered to represent Drago and, to everybody's shock, convinced the kid to plead guilty. His defense? The kid was researching a role in a movie that would explore the dark, disturbing underbelly of suburbia in America today. All Drago was doing was getting into character. That's how utterly devoted the talented young thespian was to his craft.
    There wasn't a movie, of course. There wasn't even a script. But there were two dozen of them waiting for Drago when he walked out of the courtroom, sentenced to probation and a couple hundred hours of community service.
    The movie that finally got shot made $70 million at the box office, with critics praising the "startling verisimilitude" that Drago brought to his "searing, unforgettable performance" by virtue of his "daring research" and into the "dark, unplumbed depths of teen despair and sexual depravity."
    The arrest, rather than ruining Drago's career, sent it soaring to new heights, and Tyrell's along with it. Within months, Tyrell moved from downtown to Beverly Hills, where he became the lawyer of choice for any celebrity caught with their pants down, a coke spoon up their nose, or a bloody knife in their hand.
    Tyrell was doing the same thing he'd always done, only now he was doing it for a higher class of criminal scum. It wasn't just the improved compensation that made his new practice so much better. It was also a simple quality-of-life issue. A junkie actor who dressed in Prada and lived in gated splendor in Bel Air was a lot more pleasant to be around than the average junkie who wore soiled pants and lived under a freeway overpass.
    Arthur Tyrell had never met Lacey McClure. But after watching the news, he knew he soon would.
    In anticipation of the inevitable, Tyrell summoned one of his assistants to his office and gave the surgically enhanced young woman a list of very important tasks.
    He wanted complete personal, professional, and financial histories on Steve Sloan, Cleve Kershaw, Amy Butler, and Lacey McClure.
    He wanted detailed background on every homicide case Steve Sloan had investigated during his time with the LAPD and a copy of his confidential personnel file.
    And finally, and most importantly, Tyrell wanted the names of the top home-theater designers in the city, reviews of the best projection equipment, and a catalog of leather screening-room furniture. Lacey McClure was going to pay for the private home screening room of Arthur Tyrell's dreams.
    She just didn't know it yet.
    CHAPTER SIX
    When Mark awoke at six, he put on his bathrobe and padded barefoot into the kitchen, where he found Steve dressed and already at the table, the morning paper open in front of him.
    "How did you sleep?" Mark asked.
    "I didn't," Steve said. "I had this on my mind."
    Steve closed the paper and held it up for Mark to see. The front page was dominated by a huge story on the murders,