Fun and Games (15 page)

“Back that way a block or two,” Lane said. “You were kidding about lunch, right?”

Right in front of Grauman’s, Hardie stopped, put the van in park, pressed down on the emergency brake, flipped on the four-ways. The car ahead of him inched forward a few feet. The car behind Hardie noticed, and gave a tap of his horn.

“Okay, this is good. This will work,” Hardie said.

“Right, Charlie?”

“Follow me.”

And there, right in the middle of Hollywood Boulevard, Hardie turned off the ignition, pulled out the keys, and stepped outside.

Lane stared at him as if he were an astronaut who’d announced he was going for a stroll and just opened the air lock without his helmet on.

“Charlie?”

But what else could she do except follow him? Lane opened the passenger door, unsnapped her belt, slid off the seat, and started limping toward the back of the van. Charlie had already opened up the back doors. He grabbed the suitcase. The guy in the car behind them, just two feet away, moaned
what the fuck
so loudly she could hear it through the glass of his windshield. He blasted them with his horn again. Hardie looked up, smiled, and gave him a tiny Queen of England wave.

Lane touched his shoulder.

“Uh, you know we can’t stop here. The cops are going to be up our asses in about two seconds.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing we won’t be here.”

“Please explain that.”

Charlie pulled the retractable handle out from the suitcase, then extended his left arm formally.

“Shall we?”

Now other car horns were screaming at them. Charlie didn’t seem to care. He looked over at a crowd gathered on the sidewalk—hustlers, moms, dads, punks, homeless guys, toddlers, costumed superheroes, models—and shouted:

“Hey, Hollywood types! Free drugs! Help yourself, right inside the van.”

Hardie launched the van keys up in the air toward Grauman’s. People jumped out of the way and cursed as the keys made their descent back to earth. Then Hardie linked arms with Lane and pulled his rolling suitcase down the coral-and-charcoal paving block of the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

21

I found out something I never knew.

I found out my world was not the real world.

—Robert F. Kennedy

“A M
ANHATTAN
on the rocks,” Hardie said, adding, “lots of ice.”

“Yes, sir.”

The tuxedoed waiter moved away from the table and headed toward the oak bar.

Musso & Frank was a Hollywood legend. Even Hardie was familiar with the place. Countless directors, actors, screenwriters had sat in these same chairs, knocking back tumblers of booze and sawing into chops and making big Hollywood deals. Hardie knew this because one night—bored out of his mind and with no new movies to watch—he had watched a DVD extra that gave a quickie history of the place. As Hardie understood it, Musso & Frank was where you came to create dreams, and others could just gawk.

Which was the whole idea.

From the moment they stepped inside, everybody was staring at them.

Granted, Hardie would have stared at them, too. Their clothes were dirty and torn and blood-encrusted. Hardie was pretty sure he had blood caked all around his head and neck. The gore that had seeped through his gray T-shirt had left it stiff and dark. He was also dragging along his stupid luggage, headless Spider-Man and all, which was probably a faux pas unto itself.

But he was here with World Famous Actress Lane Madden, and that made all the difference.

The maître’d, an older gray-haired man in a natty suit, blanched at first but then recognized her face. If Lane Madden wanted a table, then she would receive a table, no matter her physical appearance. He didn’t flinch. Maybe he was used to actors showing up in their makeup, looking like they crawled away from a plane crash site.

But everyone else…

It was clear no one had ever seen anything like this. Not even this midafternoon crowd of lingering lunch-hour boozers and people hoping to get Saturday night started early.

Oh, the stares.

Hardie looked at her. “Aren’t you going to order something?”

“I feel like I need to throw up. Like I’m having bed spins but I haven’t been drinking. I should really call my manager.”

“Have some bread. Or a drink.”

“I don’t want any food. And I’m not allowed to have any alcohol. What are we doing here?”

“You’re in public, being seen. If everything you’ve told me is true, then this is the last place They’d want you. Consider this a big ol’ thumb in their eyes.”

“But Musso’s? Why here?”

“Why not? This is a Hollywood power joint, right?”

“Uh…”

Hardie was about to tell her about the DVD extra, when someone stood up from the bar and approached their table. Instinctively, Hardie reached for a butter knife, tensed himself. The guy, wearing a designer T-shirt and jeans, held up a phone and snapped a photo, then walked away without a word. So, that’s how they do you here in L.A. Quick and dirty. Hardie put the knife back on the table and called after the guy.

“You’re welcome, buddy.”

They were here to be seen—but not for long. The way Hardie figured it, they’d stay just long enough to have a drink and be photographed and gossiped about. In a world where jacking off in the back of a porno theater makes you notorious, this couldn’t help but raise some eyebrows. Hardie saw it as pissing on the burning embers of their failed “accidental death.”

They’d get noticed, and Topless’s little plans would fall apart, and then they’d get out of here and go ghost for a while and have Deke call in the cavalry.

Lane, meanwhile, looked sick to her stomach.

The guy with the cell phone—a production assistant named Josh Geary—quickly cut through the length of the restaurant and headed out the back to the parking lot. This was insane, what he just saw. Josh checked the photo again, squinting, but yeah. Lane Madden, looking like she’d just crawled out of her own grave. A few key presses later, the photo was on its way to a web editor he knew back in NYC. Geary was leaving for NYC next month, and hey, it couldn’t hurt to send a little gift ahead of time.

The editor, whose name was Zoey Jordan, texted back:
I WANT TO HAVE YOUR ABORTION.
(Ah, those
Fight Club
jokes never got old.) Jordan worked at a celebrity gossip blog. NYC-based, but they also ran L.A. stuff. Especially L.A. stuff like this.

Within twenty seconds, the photo was online with a snarky headline: LIFE IN THE FAST… ER, LANE?

Hardie was confused. Sitting across the table, Lane looked like she’d just been handed a death sentence.

“This is a good thing,” Hardie said. “We’ve just proven you didn’t die in a car crash this morning.”

“Uh huh.”

“They can’t do a thing now. They wanted to kill you and make it look like an accident and they failed. You’re sitting here in public. That dork in the two-hundred-dollar T-shirt probably just saved your life. He sends it to his friends, they’ll send it around.”

“But then what comes next?”

Hardie looked around the restaurant. Where was the waiter with his Manhattan? His brain worked better on booze, he was sure of it. Half of the shit that happened to him today wouldn’t have happened if he’d had a minor buzz on.

“Look, I know you said that these
Accident People
are connected at the highest levels. Which sounds like a stupid movie line, by the way. Anyway, there’s one guy I trust, literally, with my life.”

“Now
that
sounds like a stupid movie line.”

“Touché. And that’s the guy I told you about. Deke. He can’t be touched. He’s straighter than a grizzly’s dick. I can call him, and he’ll have an investigation going by the time my drink arrives. He lives for shit like this. He’ll investigate. Everything comes out in the open.”

Everything comes out in the open.

Charlie’s words broadsided her.

That was exactly what she’d been afraid of for three years now, wasn’t it? The very thought of it terrified her. Even worse than dying. Because if she had died back on the 101, if she hadn’t been lucky with that stupid martial arts move and that fistful of safety glass… then at least her worst memory would have died with her.

God, all this time, fighting Them, struggling to survive, escaping, running, begging for a chance to live…

Maybe all this time she should have been rooting for them.

Because once everything comes out in the open…

This time, Factboy was in the bathroom legitimately—taking a quick leak—when the phone in his cargo pants pocket buzzed. He shook, zipped up, then checked the screen and smiled. A Google alert on Lane Madden. He read it, then read it again, just to make sure his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him or somebody hadn’t linked to an
Onion
piece or something. Then he autodialed Mann.

“She’s at Musso and Frank,” Factboy said. “Right now?”

“Right now.”

“Doing what?”

“Having drinks, apparently.”

There was a pause on the line; for a moment Factboy worried that Mann would be thinking he was playing a joke, or fucking around with her for some reason (though he’d never dare). Instead she said:

“You know, I could kiss you.”

And with that, the call terminated.

Factboy’s face melted into a loose grin. It wasn’t that he relished a kiss from someone like Mann—even if she was hot, she was still scary as fuck. No, what made Factboy happy was that warm, fuzzy glow of job security, the knowledge that he’d done well, and that he could bask in it for a few minutes. When he rejoined his family at dinner, his wife was pleasantly surprised he’d returned so quickly.

And Factboy told his kids that, yes, they could order ice cream out on the back porch after they finished their meals.

O’Neal eased himself onto a wooden bench in the Lake Hollywood dog park. Hands and legs scraped to hell, bruising all up and down his back, head throbbing, eyes watering. What hurt most, though, was his pride. They have a word for henchmen who fuck up. And that would be…
ex-henchmen.
He could imagine Mann berating him. If he hadn’t gone after them solo, they wouldn’t have a van loaded with gear and sensitive information now, would they?

As if on cue, his cell vibrated.

Mann. “

We’ve got approval on a budget extension. But we need to wrap this up right now. No excuses, no more mistakes.”

“I’m fine, Mann, really, thanks for asking.”

Mann ignored him. O’Neal supposed he should know better than to expect concern about his well-being or health. In her mind, O’Neal had fucked up.

“I have two new team members bringing a vehicle,” Mann said. “I’ve got your position. Stay where you are. We’ll come get you.”

“Do you even know where they are?”

“Yeah. I know.”

“And you’ve got a new narrative in mind?”

“Of course.”

At long last the waiter placed the Manhattan on the table in front of Hardie. Sparkling reddish amber, packed with fresh ice, a vision of Heaven if Hardie ever saw one. But he shocked himself by not touching it. Not until he figured out what was up with Lane, who was staring at his drink.

“What is it? What’s wrong? I mean, besides the—well, obvious?”

Lane picked up a fork from the table, then pressed her thumbs against it until her knuckles turned white.

“I’m going to tell you something I haven’t told anybody.”

“Okay.”

“You’re not going to like it.”

“Okay.”

Lane told her story.

Three years ago—January.

They’d been goofing around in her new car, speeding down Mulholland Drive in the late afternoon. He said for a real thrill you had to do Mulholland in the dark, in the rain, going like 90 miles per hour. She told him he was ridiculous. He told her that
he
should drive, really show her what the car could do. The car was factory-new. Delivered yesterday. Yesterday she’d been on a shoot, the last day. The car was a present from the director. The car was a thing of high-speed beauty. She loved it, and loved that it made Blond Viking God jealous. She could tell.

The delivery guys woke her up. The shoot had been long, grueling. She was fried to the point of not knowing what day it was, or what a normal routine felt like. This was always the case; it took a few weeks of film detox before she felt normal again. By then she’d be diving back in for her next role. Which was fine. She wanted to keep busy. She liked being busy. She’d heard a term—
journeyman actor
—and liked it. It meant she wouldn’t flame out quickly. She preferred to have thirty decent movies on her IMDB page than a handful of spectacular smashes and utter flameouts.

Blond Viking God told her she was lazy; anything less than Total World Domination wasn’t worth her time.

Blond Viking God was in a position to say something like that. Even then, three years ago, he was the Blond Viking God.

So she received her new car and quickly showered and dressed and ate a croissant—the first breadlike food she’d had in five weeks—and poured some orange juice down her throat and went off to Blond Viking God’s place in Santa Monica. He was hung-over but immediately suggested a drink.

She pouted a little—she’ll admit that much. She wanted to go driving around L.A. Something she used to do all the time.

Wait until I show you Decker Canyon Road, she said.

Fuck that, he said. Mulholland or nothing, baby!

He had a few drinks, and then she was coerced into having a beer—again, the first booze she’d had in five weeks, since the start of the shoot. The first sip was a cold, fuzzy blast. Wow. Reluctantly, she accepted another beer, nursing it as he tossed back bourbon. He’d been on a big bourbon kick lately, having come back from shooting a gothic/science-fiction thing down in New Orleans. Bought it by the case. She hoped it was a phase; she didn’t like kissing him after a bourbon jag.

She saw the light in his eyes go dimmer and dimmer, and she hated when that happened. He got to a certain point where it was impossible to reach him. So she said, shoes on, we’re going for a ride.

He put his shoes on; they went for a ride.

They didn’t go as far as Decker Canyon Road—honestly, she was afraid all the twists and turns would make him puke. And sorry, she was not cleaning Blond Viking God vomit out of her factory-new sports car. He egged her on—Mulholland, baby! Mulholland! Until finally she agreed, taking the PCH up to Sunset, then up Beverly Glen.

Finally to Mulholland.

He gleefully told her the story behind the name. Mulholland was a government official who was responsible for the deaths of at least 450 people—including forty-some kids—when a dam burst.

Only in L.A., he said, would they name a road after someone like that.

They stopped at a lookout, at which point Blond Viking God grabbed the keys.

No.

C’mon.

Fuck, no. Don’t be an idiot.

I’m fine. I just want to give it a test spin.

And I’m saying no.

He jingled the keys in front of her.

Just a mile or so.

How much bourbon did you drink?

See you at the bottom.

She screamed his name—

But ultimately he won, because he always won, because he was the Blond Viking God and he raced her factory-new sports car down Mulholland Drive, yelling, NOW, THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT.

They didn’t die.

They didn’t hit anyone.

Frankly, he was actually okay behind the wheel.

And Lane had to admit, maybe she was being silly, because it was a pretty amazing ride, the cool January air making all of L.A. look crystal-clear sharp down to the molecule. And there they were, on top of everything.

They decided to get a bite down in the valley. Somewhere quiet, out of the way. He said he knew the perfect place. They went down Beverly Glen to Ventura. Blond Viking God was confused; he knew it was here somewhere, but maybe he’d passed it. So he hooked a left onto a side street, then another left, onto another side street. I’m hungry, he said, then gunned it. He saw the kid two seconds before—chasing a Wiffle ball into the street. He slammed the brakes. The tires screamed. She screamed. None of it did any good.