Manny shook his head. "I suppose its possible," he said. "But I didn't do it. Maybe the private investigator tapped the phone himself."
"Oh I have no doubt that he is the one who installed it," Jake said. "But he had to have been let in here by you, and you are the one who is listening to the tapes and reporting to him."
"Jake," he said. "He doesn't need me to do that. Surely you know that taps can be very sophisticated. He could be receiving radio transmissions of your conversations."
"He could be, but he's not," Jake said. "It would be expensive to do that and he would have to monitor the transmission twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to be sure he caught everything. Wouldn't it be a lot easier for them to use the sneaking little mole they already have in the residence to monitor tapes for them? I mean, what would it take you? A couple of hours a day?"
"I'm not a spy, Jake. I don't know how many times I have to..."
Jake stood up suddenly and grabbed Manny by the front of his shirt. He pulled him bodily to his feet, spun him around, and then slammed him into the nearest wall hard enough to knock two pictures to the floor. Manny's expression registered shocked surprise and the first hints of fear.
"What are you doing?" Manny yelled. "You can't..."
Jake pulled him back and then slammed him into the wall again, harder this time. Another picture went down, the glass in the frame shattering on impact. "I can and I am," Jake yelled at him. "You're going to take me to that fucking tap right now or I'm going to beat the living shit out of you. You want a few scars on that pretty face of yours? I can give them to you."
"I'll call the cops!" Manny threatened, a little breathlessly since the wind had been driven from his lungs. "They'll arrest you!"
"Maybe," Jake said. "And then what? National will put one of their high priced lawyers on the case and get me off. After all, I'm someone who makes millions of dollars for them, ain't I? What do you do for them? You spy on me and stew fucking rabbits for me. You don't make them any money. Anyone could do what you're doing. You are a replaceable asset. And the way the high priced lawyer will get me off is by finding out every sordid thing you've ever done and bringing it out in open court. The media will be all over the case since I'm a celebrity. They'll expose you for the flaming faggot you are and any hope you ever had of being an actor will be destroyed. So go ahead and call the fucking cops. But first, you're going to tell me where that goddamned phone tap is!"
"Jake, there is no..."
Jake spun him around and threw him into the couch. He caught the back of it with his legs, flipped upside down, bounced onto the coffee table, knocking over Jake's drink and the ashtray, and then crashed to the floor. Before he could even begin to get up, Jake was upon him, pushing him back into the floor.
"Where's the fucking tap at?" Jake asked. "That's the last time I ask. You say there isn't one again, I start punching that pretty face."
Manny was now quite terrified. His eyes were bugging out in fear. "All right," he said. "All right! Let go of me!"
"Are you gonna show me where it is?" Jake asked.
"Yes," he said, crying now. "I'll show you. Just don't hit my face."
Jake stood up, jerking Manny to his feet. He pushed him towards the phone in the living room. "This one first. Did he put one in there?"
"They're not in the phones," Manny sobbed. "My God, did you have to be so violent?"
"Apparently I did," Jake said, without remorse. "And what do you mean they're not in the phones?"
"You don't have to put them in the phones," Manny said. "You just have to tap into the line."
"Oh," Jake said. "Guess I've been watching too many spy movies. Show me where the shit is."
Manny, still sobbing, led Jake to the back bedroom of the house, where Manny slept. The room was neat and tastefully decorated. Manny went to his bed and pulled it away from the wall. He picked up a small handheld tape recorder, which was plugged into a socket that had been installed in the wall.
"I thought you had your own phone line," Jake said.
"I do," Manny said. "But the main phone line is back here too. He just cut a hole in the wall, tapped into it, and then installed the tape recorder."
"And you've listened to all of my phone conversations on that thing?" Jake asked. "Listened to them and reported everything to this investigator asshole?"
"Yes," Manny blubbered. "I'm sorry, Jake. I had to do it. It's my job!"
"Uh huh," Jake said. "That's what the boys at Nuremberg all said too." He took the recorder out of Manny's hand and yanked it forcefully out of the wall. He dropped it to the floor and stomped on it with his foot, until it was nothing more than a smashed piece of components and plastic. "You can give that back to them now. Are there any more?"
"No," Manny said. "Why would there be?"
Jake nodded. He believed him. "And is there anything else in this house I need to know about? Bugs in my bedroom? Cameras in the fuckin bathroom?"
Manny shook his head. "They just wanted to know where you were going and what you were doing."
"Okay, and now for the big question. Did you play a little double agent on National and tip off that paparazzi fuck that Mindy and I were going to be at the beach yesterday?"
Again, Manny showed just how far into the loop he was by not expressing any surprise over the fact that a paparazzi had taken shots of the two lovers. Obviously Shaver or, more likely, Crow had already briefed him on that. "Of course not," he said. "That would be career suicide for me to do something like that. Besides, I didn't know what beach you were going to. Ms. Snow never mentioned that on the phone."
He did have a point there. "Okay," Jake said. "This is the deal. You tell Crow and that PI whatever the fuck you need to tell them. I would suggest the truth — that I beat the information out of your snooping ass — but that's up to you. In the future, you will allow no more recording devices or snooping devices of any kind to be installed in this house. You can keep informing on me like you're supposed to, but stick to your own observations. If I find out you're bugging or tapping or doing anything else along those lines, I will throw your ass off the fucking balcony. Do I make myself clear?"
He nodded. "Yes, Jake," he said. "You make yourself clear."
"And do you believe me?"
Manny shuddered. "I believe you."
He called Mindy thirty minutes later. She expressed shock and embarrassment when he told her they had been captured on film, especially when he told her how he knew they had been captured.
"They tapped your phone?" she cried. "Oh my God, Jake. All those things I said to you. All those private conversations! They know everything we said to each other?"
"Well, Manny heard them all," he said. "I don't think he made a transcript though. He just reported the who and the where of the meetings."
"I still feel violated," she said. "My God. Listening in on private phone calls? What kind of people do you work for?"
"I think we've been over that one," he said. "But trust me when I say that it won't be happening again."
"How did you get him to admit it?" she asked. He had left his interrogation method out of the story.
"We had a heart to heart talk," Jake told her. "But enough about me. What's this going to do to you? What's our next move?"
She sighed. "I suppose I going to have to call Georgette and make a confession to her. It's her they're going to be calling when they decide to break the story. I think the best thing to do is to tell them that you and I are friends, that we met at the premier and found out we both liked the beach so we decided to go there together. After all, they didn't film us doing anything... you know... naughty. We didn't even kiss." She giggled. "Not there anyway."
Jake smiled despite everything that had happened. "Yes, it's a good thing they didn't catch our action a little later that day. Anyway, that's the same thing Shaver said we should tell them. Just good friends, nothing more. But will anyone believe it?"