He probably thought he intimidated people, but I just found it comical. It wasn’t like I was going to be told to go home at this point – Ashton was too paranoid to be down a security guy while waiting for all the background checks to be done. A thorough dig might have come up with the death certificate for Marshall Miller in a piss-ant town in Louisiana, but probably not. The rest of his record was clean.
Within an hour of his overly enthusiastic handshake, Damon was fitting me with a little earpiece and introducing me to Phillip Tanner, Ashton’s public relations guy. He was the last stop before the man himself, and he spent a good forty-five seconds just looking me up and down.
“Umm…hmmm,” he hummed under his breath
. “I’m sure Mister Ashton will like this one.”
I glanced at Jim, who just looked away from me. Their behavior confirmed my suspicions about Brad Ashton’s preferences. I was also introduced to Alex something-or-another, whose main job seemed to be to stand right outside the door to the hotel room and glare at people.
“Marshall Miller,” Phillip announced as he opened up the door to the hotel suite and allowed me and the other security guys through.
Ashton was on the far side of the room with a phone up to his ear, looking bored as he leaned back in the office chair by the desk, staring at his fingernails. His eyes moved over to the group entering the room, and he appraised me similarly to the way Phillip had outside. The look he gave me was decidedly less subtle than the one from his PR guy. There might have been some actual drool, which made me wonder if there wasn’t some other plan that might be just as effective. The way he was looking at me made my stomach tighten up.
I wondered if Bridgett felt the same way when guys looked at her.
We all just stood there for a while, and I felt myself automatically enter the at attention mindset – mostly blank in the head but still listening closely. It was a pose I actually found very relaxing, though training camps used it to drive recruits crazy. I always felt it was a good opportunity to let go and reset, and it usually left me feeling recharged. I could stand still like that for hours, though the others around me began to fidget after only two or three minutes.
Once Brad Ashton finally hung up the phone, he stood and walked slowly over to the group. He barely looked at anyone else but looked me up and down more than once.
“This must be the new guy,” he said with a smile.
“Marshall Miller,” I said as I extended my palm for him to shake.
He took my hand with his manicured fingers and held it a little longer than he needed to for just a handshake.
“A pleasure,” he said quietly. “Welcome to the team.”
His attention went to his PR guy after that, and we discussed the boring details of the main event of the evening. Ashton would be escorted through the lobby downstairs via the service elevator, over to the ballroom where he’d participate in an interview and a panel discussion with a couple other actors and the director of his next flick. The details didn’t interest me. Now that everyone else’s attention was occupied, I could examine the inside of the hotel room.
It was a good-sized suite with a separate room leading to a king-sized bed and a nice view of the street below. In the main room there were two balconies and a wet bar. There was another door on the other side of the suite, which was closed with the bolt secured.
With the room’s layout captured in my head, I was now able to watch the dynamics of the group.
Phillip mooned over Ashton, barely taking his eyes off the man like he was some sort of golden god. Jim nodded a lot, but his expression told me his mind was somewhere else. He glanced at me a couple of times, and it occurred to me that he might have taken a risk bringing me on without any additional credentials.
When the proper time came, we escorted Ashton down the elevator to his interview, then to a table way in the back of the hotel’s restaurant for his dinner with some producer from Universal Studios. I was stationed between the lobby and the entrance to the restaurant to watch for anything that looked suspicious.
The next day was pretty much the same, only it was an autograph and photo opportunity thing, and I watched the ticket-takers make sure everyone had the right kind of tickets.
The whole standing-at-attention, mind-numbing activity came in handy again.
Damon and Jim were much closer to Brad Ashton physically than I ever was, and Ashton hadn’t said a word to me since that first meeting. Apparently, I wasn’t giving off the right kind of vibe. Normally that would be perfectly fine with me, but I needed Ashton to make a move, and he was only going to be in this city for a total of three days. I racked my mind for various ways of giving him the impression I might be interested and could only come up with things I might do to attract a woman, which didn’t seem quite right.
What attracted me?
Tits and ass, that’s what.
No help there.
I had about come to the conclusion that I was going to have to get a little more drastic. Every time Ashton went out anywhere, there were at least three of us with him, and usually four. When Brad Ashton retired to his room at night, it was never completely alone. Alex was always outside the door, and Phillip was often inside. I hadn’t caught any additional company outside of the core group, and I didn’t think there had been anyone else sneaking inside, but I wasn’t positive.
I had to be sure, so I watched carefully.
Alex was as diligent as they came, and he took no breaks during his shift. No one went in or out of the door to Ashton’s private room without Alex knowing about it. Ashton’s room was connected to a common room as well, which was where we would all meet before heading to the elevator for an event of some kind. Though the room didn’t have its own guard, there were almost always other people in it – usually other actors or people in the business, at least. It was where Jim slept on a roll-away bed when he wasn’t on duty. Still, there was potential with a third adjoining room which wasn’t being used by the group
There had to be another way to either get in or out. The two balconies in the common room were just a bit far off the ground to consider climbing up to them. There was no easy way to get up there from the street, and scaling up five stories using other balcony rails would have been beyond stupid.
I had to get Ashton to come out, but he never left the damn room without a plethora of escorts.