“Talk, you prick.”

He licked his lips, and started again, “Umm…Jodie told me some things about you, and I worked with a writer to incorporate aspects of what she said into a script. She’d tried to find out more from the gallery you sold, and from the air service office, also. I think she began to ask around with her art circle contacts, etc.”

She remained still, observing him sharply.

“Spencer showed up in one of my sets one day, and seemed to know about the script. A few weeks later, he showed up again, and hinted to me that he knew of another script, with a plot-line similar to what I’d been developing, that another group was writing. I guess the scriptwriter I was working with had talked to his girlfriend about it, or something like that. Anyway, the other script sounded like it would be more appealing to William, although derivative of mine, we thought. Things got to a point where I thought I should just drop out of the project. But Jodie kept egging me on, and once they’d obtained the rights to the other script, Spencer gave me the idea that I could use my script as a bargaining chip to ask to direct whatever Film Features wanted to make out of the other script.”

“So I showed up at the meeting my agent had arranged with Tina.”

He paused, and tried to avoid Bette’s accusing eyes, “I knew Jodie was using the situation to try to get back at you, and I just wanted another chance to be … um … around Tina.”

He swallowed, “But I didn’t know what Spencer’s angle was.”

Bette gave him a withering look. “And you told Jodie about what you’d done with Tina?”

He nodded his head, looking down on his hands.

“Did anyone else, aside from Spencer, try to get in touch with you?” she asked, her sharp voice rousing him from his reverie.

He shook his head, “No … no. But,” he paused, trying to remember the last time he and Spencer had talked. “Spencer took two strange calls the last time he and I talked in one of my sets at that time. His response to the first call kind sounded like he was telling the person who called that everything related to me was on schedule, that I’d agreed to both the cash he’d offered to purchase the rights to the script I’d made, as well as agreed to stay on and demand to be the director of whatever movie would come out of the script Film Features had obtained. He seemed pretty sure they’d make contact with me or my agent, Paula.”