I wasn’t obligated to explain it to him, but Ian had been Russell’s manager for over ten years and was used to standing between Russell and all things unpleasant. So I chalked up his attitude to protective habit and told him. “We need to make sure that each witness gives us his or her best memory without being influenced by anyone else’s opinion or recollection.”
Russell’s features tightened, a mixture of confusion and irritation. “But what is there for anyone to remember? I was the one who got all the messages. They won’t know anything.”
Since I had no intention of telling him what we suspected, I breezed by the meat of the question. “We just have to follow procedures and cover all the bases, Russell. If they have nothing to say, we’ll be done pretty quick.”
My tone was polite but unmistakably firm. Russell gave a loud, exasperated sigh. “Fine. But I’ve got sensitive materials for my next film in the study, so you’ll have to use the guest room.”
Oh heavens, no, not the guest room. “That’ll be fine. Uma, can you lead the way?”
She dipped her head and cast a baleful look at Russell, like a chastened pet, and led us down the hallway to a large bedroom decorated in hues of forest green and ecru. It had French doors that opened onto a courtyard featuring a waterfall fountain made of a dark slate-type stone and a black marble Buddha. Very feng shui.
Uma gestured to a corner near the French doors where a love seat faced two wingback chairs. Bailey and I took the chairs, and Uma, who I could now see habitually curved her head and shoulders down, like a walking comma, scurried onto the love seat. Had working for Russell bent her into this obsequious posture, or had she always been this way? Bailey tried to put her at ease, explaining that we didn’t suspect her of anything and just needed to gather information. Uma dipped her head a couple of times. “I get it, not a problem.”
“Can you give me a rundown of what you did on Monday?” Bailey asked.
Uma recounted their day at the studio: meetings and more meetings, phone calls and more phone calls with producers, writers, agents, casting directors. At about six o’clock, they came back to the house.
“Do you always ride home with Russell?”
“Yeah, pretty much. He rolls calls on the way home and he prefers if I’m in the car with him while I listen in.”
“Listen in?” Bailey asked.
Oh, poor naive Bailey, who didn’t know the ways of Hollywood. All assistants listened in on their bosses’ phone calls. Though it was never announced and the uninitiated might never know unless the boss, in the middle of the phone call, told the assistant to make a note of something. The benign reason for this systematic eavesdropping is so the assistant can take notes and keep the “to do” list up to date. The not so benign reason is to protect the boss in case the actor/producer/writer/agent later claimed something was promised that hadn’t been. Uma gave Bailey the former reason. Of course.
