Chapter 29: Actress at Rock Bottom

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"Listen," Nolan said. "I need the money in place before kickoff at the latest."

"How fast does settlement come back?" Nolan asked.

"Two hours after the game at best. Four at the outside. How much are you moving?" Murphey said.

"About ten thousand."

Nolan thought of Lisa’s check under his pillow, still uncashed.

"Ten thousand? Where did you get that kind of money, kid?"

"So Thomas isn’t moving much?"

"Don’t fish for another client’s business."

"Within four hours," Nolan said. "No delays."

"Relax. This is off-book, but I settle fast and I don’t lose clients’ money."

"This has nothing to do with nerve."

If Nolan did not trust his ability, he would never touch this. His father’s fall was warning enough.

"At the current line, ten grand wins roughly five thousand before fees," Murphey said. "Company fees and handling run three percent. My commission is waived this time. Next time, one percent."

Useful.

Very useful.

The market clearly had not absorbed the news about Culver City’s injured quarterback yet.

Nolan hung up and asked Thomas for two hours off.

Thomas knew exactly why and did not stop him.

Nolan went straight back to the motel, grabbed the check, and headed for the bank.

Lisa’s check was drawn on Citibank. There were not many convenient branches for Nolan, but he knew one near ICM. It was not too far from school.

By the time he arrived, the branch was close to closing. Only one teller window remained open. Two customers stood ahead of him.

The first was a young woman.

Five minutes passed.

She did not move.

Her voice grew louder.

"How can you not cash it? It’s your bank’s check."

"I’m sorry, miss. The check is drawn on an out-of-state account, and you don’t have acceptable local identification. You need to take it to the Hollywood Boulevard branch."

"Are you kidding me? I walked two hours to get here. Now you want me to walk to Hollywood Boulevard? You close in half an hour. How am I supposed to cash it?"

"I’m sorry."

"I cashed one here last time."

"I’m sorry."

The teller had the compassion of a locked drawer.

"You’re making this hard because I’m foreign," the woman snapped, hitting the counter with one hand.

Nolan looked over.

Short blond hair.

She began spilling her life in a desperate attempt to win sympathy. Sometimes she stole bread to eat. The check from her mother had to be cashed today, or the motel would throw her out. She had won a modeling contest back home and gone to Europe with her mother, worked in Milan for a year, made almost nothing, then gone to New York hoping to pursue ballet. A knee injury had ended that. She refused to go back to a farm and spend her life with cows, so she had come to Los Angeles to become an actress.

Three months in, she had not even found a real audition.

The accent was strong enough that Nolan could not place it immediately.

Her eyes were wet now.

Security noticed the raised voices and began moving closer.

"Miss," Nolan said, stepping forward, "why don’t you handle this to the side and let the rest of us finish before the branch closes?"

She turned on him.

"What’s it to you?"

It was the first time Nolan saw her face clearly.

Young. Rounder than he expected. Not yet the image he half remembered from later. The haircut did her no favors, and the exhaustion flattened whatever presence she might have had.

"I can stand here and watch everyone miss closing," Nolan said. "Then you can come back tomorrow and fight the same fight again. Does that sound better?"

"I..."

"Give me the check."

He held out a hand.

"Why?"

She looked instantly wary.

Nolan blinked at her once, deliberately.

Understanding arrived.

She shoved the check into his palm.

"This is my girlfriend," Nolan told the teller. "She just came over from South Africa and doesn’t understand the process yet. She’ll endorse the check, and I’ll deposit it through my account."

The teller looked from Nolan to the young woman.

"Yes," she said quickly. "Yes, that’s right."

Charlize endorsed the check. The teller called over the lobby manager. After reviewing both IDs, the manager approved the third-party deposit and made an exception for immediate cashing.

Nolan’s local identification and account solved what the teller had refused to solve for her.

He cashed Lisa’s check as well.

Outside, the woman exhaled.

"Thank you."

Her smile froze when Nolan handed her two hundred seventy dollars.

The check had been for three hundred.

"Service fee," Nolan said.

"I’m calling the police."

"For what? It was my check by the time the bank cashed it. My money. I don’t have to hand you any of it."

Her face hardened.

"You tricked me."

She lifted a fist, then seemed to remember how much larger he was.

"You can have the full three hundred," Nolan said. "Answer a few questions first."

"What do you want?"

"Nothing like what you’re imagining. Your name."

Her face looked familiar. Too familiar to ignore.

In his previous life, Nolan only remembered famous women from screens, magazines, and late-night fragments of pop culture. If he knew this face, it belonged somewhere in that future.

"Charlize Theron," she said quietly.

So that was it.

Nolan looked at her again, startled by how different she was from the woman the world would later recognize.

"Can I go now?"

"Sure."

"Then give me my money."

She stamped one foot in frustration.

"Wait," Nolan said. "You want into Hollywood, right? I may have an opportunity. Depends whether you’re willing to take it."

He could introduce a future star to Lisa and let Lisa cultivate her. If Charlize became valuable later, Lisa would profit, and Nolan would have returned the favor in a form money could not match.

Lisa worked upstairs. The entire detour might take ten minutes.

Training could wait that long.

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