Mirages: Tales From Authors of the Macabre
Author: Trent Zelazny; Joe R. Lansdale; Kealan Patrick Burke; Billie Sue Mosiman; Tom Piccirilli
Date: 2012-11-07 00:00:00+00:00
Description: Something illusory, without substance or reality. The sticky threads that communicate the meaningless in a thousand different ways. Collected here are 17 tales of darkness and dread, teetering on the edge of reality and unreality, nightmares and dreams, brought to you by some of the best voices in dark fiction. Tom Piccirilli, Jeffrey Thomas, Barb Lien-Cooper & Park Cooper, Lee Allen Howard, Tina Swain, Joseph S. Pulver, Sr., Gerald Hausman, Billie Sue Mosiman, Scott Bradley & Peter Giglio, Kealan Patrick Burke, Lori R. Lopez, Jason S. Ridler, Leigh M. Lane, Joe R. Lansdale, Curt Jarrell, E. A
Publisher: Black Curtain Press

DARK THRILLERS

A Box Set
including

BAD TRIP SOUTH

UNIDENTIFIED

DARK REALITY

Copyright Billie Sue Mosiman 2012

Table of Contents:

BAD TRIP SOUTH

UNIDENTIFIED

DARK REALITY

BANISHED

(Bonus-first chapters)

Bad Trip South

by

Billie Sue Mosiman

First Published by Five Star Press, 2004, Copyright Billie Sue Mosiman

E-book Copyright 2011 Billie Sue Mosiman

Createspace Edition Copyright 2012 Billie Sue Mosiman

Lament for Long Tom

At the piping of all hands,

When the judgment signal’s spread—

When the islands and the lands

And the seas give up their dead,

And the South and North shall come;

When the sinner is dismayed,

And the just man is afraid,

Then Heaven be thy aid, Poor Tom.

John Gardiner Calkins Brainard (1795–1828)

THE thunder of gunfire filled the weeded area between the abandoned, unpainted house and the line of half a dozen patrol cars. Windows in the house cracked and blew inwards with ear-shattering concussions.

Suddenly the door opened and a little girl came running from the house toward the police cars. She was screaming, her legs pumping, and dark hair flying. Both her arms rotated like pinwheels and from deep in her little chest issued a silent scream. She looked like a ragged street child thrown on the mercy of chance.

All around her the gunfire exploded with shots coming from both directions, from behind and in front. Miraculously none of the bullets struck her as she rushed forward, her eyes wide in terror and spittle flying from her lips.

She ran until she collapsed into the arms of a man who stepped from cover behind a car where he’d been hunched. He caught her, stumbling back when she barreled directly into his extended arms. He threw her down to the ground behind the trunk of his car.

An order of “Cease fire!” had been called out and yet was not obeyed as soon as she appeared. Now that the child had crossed through Hell and survived it, the gunshots halted. That is, they stopped except for the shots coming from the house where someone at a broken window shouted something unintelligible and fired a handgun over and over, the single shots ringing and echoing loudly up into the cold blue Texas sky, drowning out the little girl’s sobbing...

#

"CAN you tell me what happened?" The policeman--a psychologist, he said, a very special kind of policeman--sat back in his chair and took a drag on his cigarette. He squinted one eye as smoke coiled lazily past his brow.

I kept glancing around and fidgeting in my chair just like I always did in the doctor's office when I was a little kid. Only this wasn't a doctor's office and this wasn't my hometown. And the man at the desk wasn't going to give me a magic shot to make it all right.

I was used to a little town and a little reception area where the sheriff sat behind his desk reading Burpee seed catalogs and Field and Stream. Nothing like this place.

Outside the office I could hear the noise of the station where at least a dozen people worked. There were policemen answering telephones, lawyers talking to people who had been arrested, illegal aliens pleading in their own language, and, out on the street, the whole city making noises like a country band I'd seen once up on the platform in the gazebo in the middle of our town. They had a tambourine player, a man on a washboard, a drummer, banjo and guitar players. That band and this place made me want to put my hands up to flip down my ears and press them hard against the side of my head to make the sounds go away.

It wasn't the policeman’s fault. All the noise. He didn't know how nervous it made me. I liked him a lot. Although he said he’d worked with my daddy back in North Carolina, this was the first time I’d ever met him. Who would have thought he’d be all the way down here in Brownsville, Texas? But then who would have thought I’d be here either? I could tell he was sorry about everything and how I had to talk to him.

He looked like Captain Kangaroo, but a lot younger. Bushy gray eyebrows stuck out over his eyes and his face was round, his mouth about to break into a smile, but didn't quite. His eyes didn't match his face. They were the kind of eyes Daddy got when he had a suspect in his squad car, questioning him. Real serious. No fun. Fun was a long way off from eyes like that.

This man had been a police psychologist a long time, I could tell. He was probably more of a policeman than he was anything else, sort of like my Daddy was in the beginning, back when I was a really little kid.

I locked my hands together so I wouldn't bend down my ears, and asked, "Where do you want me to start?"

He took the cigarette from his lips between thumb and forefinger, like hoody boys do on TV shows, and waved it in semi-circles toward me. "How about from the beginning? I have plenty of time, little lady."

I tried to smile because he was trying to be nice, but I wasn't a lady yet. Mama's a lady. You have to be over twenty years old to be a lady and I'm only ten.

He was waiting for me to say something, though, so I told him...

...when Daddy turned into the parking lot for the Long Horn Caverns outside of St. Louis, I knew he was only doing it for Mom and me. To make up for the fight they’d had outside of Memphis where Mom let slip what she planned to do after our trip. She was taking me to Grand's and moving out for good. She was divorcing him.

I knew that already so I wasn't surprised, but when she said it to Daddy, his voice got deep scratchy, like one of those old record albums Mama let me have. I wasn't surprised because I'd heard her talking to Grand when I was supposed to be packing for the trip the week we left North Carolina. Then Mama caught me eavesdropping and set me down for a talk. I knew it was really serious when we had to have a talk. Parents don’t take much time with kids with for real, grown-up conversations, unless it’s serious.

I was kind of relieved after I tiptoed to the doorway and listened. I'm going to miss Daddy, I thought, but we have to get out before something terrible happens.

It was really hot that day in the car, driving into where the big parking lot for the Long Horn Caverns. So hot the air conditioner on our new car Daddy had just bought couldn't cool us down.

I paused, looking at the nice psychologist. "It's a long story,” I said. "Are you sure I should tell you everything?"

He waved me on again. He'd lit another cigarette. I don't mind cigarette smoke. Most kids do, they make a big deal of it, coughing and stuff, but I'm used to it. It makes me feel at home. Daddy smoked Kent, the long skinny ones, before he quit when I was eight. I still sort of missed the smell. I knew when he was in the house when he used to smoke. I could detect him without hearing his voice or his heavy footsteps.

Anyway, Daddy drove into the Long Horn Caverns’ entrance and said, "You'll like this, Em." He turned off the ignition and almost instantly hot air from outside the car made the air inside feel stuffy and too close. He'd parked in front of the caverns and now opened his car door. Then the heat outside whooshed inside in one big heavy wave that smacked me right in the face.

I'd like anything better than sitting in the car where it was so ugly quiet, them not speaking to one another. Mama never talked back to him. If she did, the ugly quiet turned to screaming and hitting. Daddy hitting her.

I could smell something awful burning when they fought, like plastic or rubber, but I knew it was my imagination. Nothing was burning but the two people in the front seat. Daddy had been bad for a long time. He hadn't raised a hand to me, but he'd hurt Mom more than once. It was hard loving him. I think some grown people are real hard to love even when you're supposed to and you want to.

"You know what I mean?" I asked the nice psychologist.

He said he knew. He knew that for sure. And he added, "Even when you get grown up, sometimes it's hard to love people when you think you should."

I wanted to think about that. No one had ever told me that secret before about grown ups. But he was waving me on so I put my head back against the chair and looked up at the ceiling until I could see the caverns again, that cool, dark entrance in the side of the hill. All I could think about that day was how cool it must be underground and how fast I wanted us to walk through the boiling sunlight to get down there in the caves.

As soon as I was out on the scorching parking lot, shading my eyes to see the promise of the cool caves ahead, I noticed that man.

Crow.

They called him Scarecrow in prison, but that didn't fit him, he said, he wasn't like no old damn raggedy-butt suit hung out on a cross in a field. So we called him Crow.

He wore black, like a crow's feathers. I thought he ought to wear shirts, because he had a chest that showed his ribs, and it was too white, like bread dough, but that day he only had on a black leather vest over black denim jeans. His belt had a round polished brass buckle that glinted golden and shiny as a mirror.

He stood near the store entrance where you went to buy tickets for a tour of the caves. He watched us, not even moving a muscle. Just watching. I didn’t like his eyes at all. They kept secrets. They were thinking about something that wasn’t nice and it involved us.

Then, as we started across the parking lot to where he stood, a girl came out of the store and stood next to him. She slipped her arm around his waist and leaned on him. He didn't do much, just let her. He was still watching us, too busy to think of the girl.

She had on real short shorts, cut off blue jean shorts, and her legs were long and brown, like an Indian's. Her hair was long too, the color of wheat that goes dry in the fields. It hung straight down around her shoulders all the way to her waist. I thought she was way too pretty to like a skinny guy like Crow, but you could tell she really did like him. She was whispering in his ear when we got to the store and passed them by.

When we got closer, I didn't think the girl pretty anymore. She had something wrong with her mouth. One side of it pulled down so that she talked out the other side. Like old people, when they get sick and sit in wheelchairs and they can't lift one of their arms or move one of their legs. Only the girl could move her arms and legs. Her mouth was just funny. Almost scary, like a dream that's all crooked and doesn't make any sense, but you know it means something if you could only figure it out.

Mama and Daddy paid them no mind, but I stared at them hard. I did that because Crow had been staring at us and it's not polite to stare. He smelled like swamp water, though I might have been the only one to notice. He smelled like water sitting still in dark shade, with worms wiggling in it and dead frogs floating on top.

I think he hissed when we went through the door, but no one heard it but me. I might have imagined that too, the same as the smells. And I thought I heard him whisper, "They're the ones."

Or maybe he didn't say it; I just read his mind. I don't...you know...expect you’ll understand this—or believe me. But it’s true. I just seem to know what people are thinking. I’ve never figured out why other people don't know how to do it because it seems easy. You just look someone in the eye and you can nearly tell what's in his head. Even when a person doesn't want you to know.

Kids’ minds are better at surprising you than grown-ups. I almost always know what grown ups are really thinking. Kids think crazy stuff so you can't figure them out that easy. Their thoughts leapfrog all over the place and hardly make any good sense at all.

As soon as I heard Crow say we were the ones, I looked up at Daddy to see if he heard, and I knew he hadn’t, that maybe Crow hadn’t said it outloud. I should tell him, that's what I thought, I need to tell him the boy and the girl at the door want something from us. But Daddy's mouth was in that tight line it gets when he's still mad. And Mama was already off to the souvenir counter, looking at silver bracelets and earrings with dangling feathers and rings with turquoise chips in them. She liked stuff like that. She wore a turquoise pinkie ring she'd gotten in Tennessee. Daddy had never really bought her nice jewelry--you know, the gold kind with diamonds and all--couldn’t afford it, he said.

Maybe if I'd told Daddy about Crow, if I'd taken the chance on Daddy getting mad and yelling at me, nothing ever would have happened. Daddy had his service revolver along in the car. He had his badge in his wallet.

He could have arrested them. For something. For staring like that. For wanting to use us that way. At least he would have been ready for what happened when we came out of the cave tour.

And I wouldn't be here now having to tell you how all the bad things happened.

And I wouldn’t have to listen to this noise, I thought, watching the nice detective now instead of the ceiling. Because I wouldn't be here in a big border city police station, all alone, so awfully all alone.

#

"THEY’RE the ones," Crow said. "Got a nice car. They come out of the tour, we'll take the keys."

Heddy glanced from beneath her silvery blond lashes at the sun beating down on the parking lot. It seemed to her it was pouring like hot lava over the cars. She frowned, feeling a trickle of sweat start down her spine. She really hated getting all sweaty and smelling like a crate of dead fish.

It was the middle of the week, not many tourists at the caverns. Only three vehicles were parked out front. Two of them looked too old and beat up to make it to the state line. She felt a lust start up in her heart for the shiny new Buick Riviera the family owned. Leather seats...cold blasts of air conditioning...power windows...stereo speakers... They must have money. What could it be like to have money like that? The car cost more than any house Heddy had ever lived in. Just about any new car today cost more than the shacks she’d had to call home. Right now her mom lived in a green and white thirty-four foot trailer that she’d picked up for five hundred bucks and a blowjob she gave the crippled owner who said he was dying anyway, take the damn trailer, what the hell good was it to him? It was shabby and full of termites, but it was probably the best “house” Heddy had ever stayed in.

"We can wait for those people to come out of the caverns if the search party doesn't find us first,” she said now, forcibly bringing her attention back to the problem at hand.

"You think they're this close?" Crow shivered a little, as if the fear he'd kept at bay for hours when they'd been on the run had returned, crawling up his back to sink pinchers into the base of his neck.

Heddy seemed to be reading the clouds. She hugged his waist tighter, snuggling her shoulder into his armpit. He didn’t smell good, particularly, but he smelled like a man and she loved the smell of men, no matter how sweaty. "It only took us an hour to get here by foot. They'll find the car, and then they'll head here, just like we did. If they can follow us across the state, they can follow us here. We don't have a lot of time."

Crow swung his large black leather satchel bag around to the front of him and patted it. "Where'd you get the piece?"

"Bandy. He said it shot good. The one I have shoots good too."

"Well, we know they shoot good, don’t we? You pay him?"

Heddy squirmed away and picked at a line of freckles that marched up her left arm.

"I said, did you pay him? I guess no answer means you paid him on your fucking back. I never trusted Bandy. He'd steal gold from a dead man's teeth."

"What's it matter how I paid him, we got the guns, didn’t we? And I was waiting when you skipped, wasn't I? Who's your baby? Who’s always there for you?"

Crow smiled a rare smile, this one dripping with the lust he felt for the girl. "Yeah, you're my baby. I'd still be back in that cell, wasn't for you."

She snuggled into his arm again, breathing deeply and smiling all inside just to be in the circle of his scent. "We have to take that family with us. That's what we have to do."

"Why the hell would we want to do that?" He glared down at her, his black brows knitting together. He knew she was smarter than he was, but it still burned him up when she came up with stuff he hadn't thought of. She knew that, but there wasn’t much she could change about the arrangement. She made the plans. She called the shots. That’s how it had to be.

"We just grab the car, we won't make it to the line. They'll tell, Crow. They saw us. They can describe us. Then the cops will know what kind of car we’re driving. On the other hand, if we grab the mom, pop, and kid, they're insurance. We can drop them off somewhere, after we're far away from here. I don't want you put back in prison. We can't take chances, no chances. I’ve got you now, I don’t want them taking you away again."

"Yeah, I can see that. Hell. Company. I didn’t really want company around. Who's gonna drive?"

She kissed him, nibbling softly on his bottom lip. She said, "I will. You sit in back with the gun on the kid. Everything will be fine. We'll be on the other side of Missouri by dark."

"God." He sucked in her lip, then covered her whole mouth, twirling his tongue around hers until she felt the beginning of his erection. She gently disengaged, pushing him back. He was breathing hard. "I don't know if I can wait,” he said.

She reached down, patted the bulge in the crotch of his jeans. "Yes, you can. You've waited for four years already."

#

DADDY bought the tour tickets and called Mama over to join the guide. Crow and his girlfriend didn't go on the tour. They were still outside, by the door, like they were waiting for a ride to pick them up. I know now they were waiting for us to get through the caverns and leave so they could get the car.

There was one other couple who went on the tour with us, an old man and woman who walked real slow. I tried to listen to the guide, a pretty girl with a turned-up nose who looked like a high school cheerleader in her tight uniform. She told us about the caves and the story how outlaws hid out in it a long time ago, and before that, how the Indians held powwows in the caves, burning fires, eating antelope and buffalo. I tried to listen, but I kept looking back behind us, thinking Crow would be there so I missed a lot of what the girl guide said.

It was cold and got colder in the caves as we walked through them. There were little lights along the pathway and more lights shining on some of the walls and the ceiling. The air was thick with damp and smelled like a grave deep, deep, deep down in the earth. Those stalag...things hung from the ceiling, like swords about to drop, and they stuck up from the floor, like tall muddy anthills. I would have thought it was neat except I couldn't stop worrying.

I tugged on Mama's hand and whispered, "Did you see that man when we came in?" She shushed me because the girl guide was talking about Old West outlaws. She didn't even hear what I said. Mama’s a schoolteacher and she doesn’t like me to interrupt when people are talking. Especially when they’re teaching you stuff.

Toward the end of the tour, I got near Daddy and took his hand. He looked down at me and smiled a little. I said, "Daddy, there was a man watching us when we got here."

He said, "Is that right?" But he wasn't really paying attention. He kept watching the girl guide as she walked ahead of us, swinging her flashlight around the cave walls. He thought she was pretty. He watched her bottom and hardly ever blinked.

Mama didn't care--though I think she noticed it too--but I wished Daddy wouldn't look at girls that way with Mama right beside him. He used to think Mama was the prettiest girl there was. He was jealous of her and some of his fits came from thinking she would like someone else better than him. But now he liked how the girl guide looked so much he hardly knew Mama was alive. He wasn't listening to how important it was Crow was watching us and talking about us when we walked inside.

Realizing Daddy wasn’t going to hear what I said either, I dropped his hand and hung back, following both my parents while I chewed the inside of my lip. All I could do was hope Crow wasn't there when we came out of the caves. Maybe he'd change his mind and find someone else to bother. Maybe he'd already found someone and they'd left. I could have, well…listened in to his mind to find out if he’d left, but I really didn’t want to do that. For some reason I knew I wouldn’t like what I’d find inside his head. Just looking at him and catching little stray thoughts from him was bad enough. I sure didn’t want to go looking into his thoughts if I didn’t have to.

I've seen bad people before. That’s something you have to know about me. I might be ten, but I’m pretty old for a little kid. Probably because all these years I’ve heard grown ups talk in their heads and I know stuff other kids just don’t know. That's how I knew something was wrong with Crow and Heddy. I knew they were bad people. Heddy, that was her name, Crow's girlfriend. She was just as bad as Crow, that was obvious to me the minute I walked past her and saw her funny mouth, and her eyes that were shiny and trying to be normal, but weren’t normal at all because they let too much of her out when she looked at you.

I think sometimes Daddy turned bad from being around so many bad people. It's like getting sick. You catch stuff from people, colds and the flu and measles. If you're only around bad people, maybe you catch what they have that makes them that way. Daddy had to arrest drunks and thieves and a couple of times he even arrested killers. Sonny and Jimmy Cochran, two brothers who shaved their heads and wore sleeveless tee shirts. “Stone killers” Daddy called them. They broke into old Mrs. Lampisi's house one night real late, thinking she’d stay sleeping. When she got up and surprised them, they beat her to death with their fists and kicked her a lot. It was the big army boots they wore that probably killed her. I don’t like to even think about it. Daddy didn't know I knew about them, but it was in the newspapers, pictures with their bald heads shining like wet grapes and their eyes--real cold and hard looking, like people who don’t care about living anymore. Eyes like Heddy had.

Daddy had once been a policeman in Charlotte for two years before I was born, and he used to talk about that at the kitchen table with Mama, how awful it was on the street, how lowdown, he said, people could be. "And they're no damn better in a little town,” he said, like he was biting down on a bitter lemon.

I don't guess all policemen get infected like Daddy did, but that's what happened. Like something in his head turned sour and he had to take it out on someone. Mama was handy, she was the goat. Isn't that what they call it? The goat that gets all the blame?

If Daddy had been watching when we went into the caves he would have known how bad Crow and Heddy were, but this time he just wasn't all there. He was thinking about Mama leaving him and taking me away. He was fuming, like a volcano, heating up to the point he'd blow. He couldn't see anything or anybody, but the way the house would be empty back in our town when we got home from the vacation.

Then he could only see the girl guide, in her brown pants uniform, pretty and young like my Barbie dolls. All blonde and perfect, dolly-like. If she had been my Barbie, I’d have put a shiny black ballgown on her and red high heels on her little feet.

That's how Crow surprised my daddy, taking advantage of a man who isn’t thinking straight.

We came from the tour, our eyes watering in the sunlight after being down in the dark caves, and before we were halfway across the parking lot, Crow came up behind my Daddy and said, "Don't give me any trouble if you want your kid to live."

He had one hand on my shoulder, pushing me along. His hand felt tough, hard, and mean, like if it had teeth, it'd bite me. I saw Mama's mouth drop open. She said, "Jay..?" Suddenly Heddy was beside her, taking her arm, talking to her so softly I couldn't hear what she was saying.

Daddy looked over at me and I saw in his eyes he remembered what I'd said during the tour. About the man watching us. And he was sorry, then, and angry, because now he was helpless to stop what was happening.

He tried anyway. Daddy was turning into a bad man, but he still loved us. He still knew what was right and wrong.

"Take your hand off my daughter. What do you think you’re doing?"

Crow stepped over close to Daddy, pulling me along with him, his fingers digging like claws into my shoulder. He opened his leather bag enough so Daddy could see his hand on the gun in there.

"Get in the front seat of the car,” Crow said. "Just do what I say."

That's how it started.

#

FRANK Hawkins let the little girl go to the bathroom. While she was out of the interrogation room, he thought about the story she’d told him. He thought about Jay and how he might have let the family get kidnapped.

Although Frank knew more about Jay Anderson than just about anyone, he thought maybe Jay’s daughter knew him from the heart out. Jay had been coming to Frank for six months prior to the vacation that ended in abduction and death. Problem at home, problem with his wife. Once the sessions got into it, Frank discovered it wasn’t a wife problem, it was purely a Jay Anderson problem. It was like other cases Frank had seen and dealt with before in his years as a psychologist on the force. Jay--just as the girl said--turned bad. He took the violence from the street home with him. It altered his relationship with his wife to the point there was no love left, only recrimination, sadness, loneliness, and, ultimately, danger.

Jay had said in an early session, “I don’t know why the sheriff’s sent me to you. I got to drive all the way down here to Charlotte for this? It’s crazy. It’s wasting your time and mine. There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“You don’t think you’re out of control?” Frank had asked.

“Hell no!” With that outburst, Jay bit his lip and looked down where he rubbed together the knuckles of his hands in nervousness. “I don’t know,” he amended. “Maybe I am.”

It grew apparent the more Frank saw of Jay that the man was in trouble, double-digit, inflationary trouble. Not only was he using his badge of authority to manhandle some of his arrested suspects, but also he took all his frustration out on his family when he went home.

Frank did not altogether dislike his patient. Yes, he was a wife beater and, yes, he probably should resign from police work, but he really was struggling to come to terms with what he had become. After denials and a few rants, Jay hung his head in shame, admitting he was abusive. He was angry. He might explode and really do great harm if Frank didn’t help him. “I don’t want to do that,” he’d said. “I couldn’t live with myself if I did something...permanent.”

It was the first step to redemption. And it was as far as they’d gotten after six months before Jay announced he was going on a two-week vacation with his family.

Frank advised against it. Stopping in the middle of therapy wasn’t a good idea. Too many parts of Jay’s personality were unresolved. Couldn’t he put off the vacation for another time?

Jay was adamant. He was going. He and his wife were about to break up and the vacation might cool things off. He needed the time away from work. He was having trouble concentrating, trouble sleeping. If he didn’t take this time, not only would he lose his marriage, but he also might make some serious mistakes at work and then where would he be? They’d pick up where they left off the therapy when he got back, he said.

Frank okayed it with Jay’s superior despite his better judgment. What could he do, handcuff the man in his office, force therapy on him?

Yet whenever Frank thought about Jay during the two-week lapse between sessions, he wished he’d held against the idea. The thought of Jay on the road with his wife and child, his life dribbling by in unstructured hours, put Frank into an agitated, anxious state. How was it going? Was the wife all right? Was Jay, not ever a patient man, losing it out there in some motel or roadside inn?

That was why when Jay didn’t return for his scheduled visit after his vacation, Frank started investigating why. Jay was a potential bomb walking around loose. And where was he? Where was his family?

Frank started looking into it. He knew immediately something was terribly wrong. He just had no idea where to start looking. It wasn’t until several days after the family had already been in the clutches of the violent pair known as Crow and Heddy that Frank got a break.

Emily returned from the bathroom, opening the door to the interrogation office slowly, peeking shyly around the door at him. She came forward slowly and took the chair opposite the desk.

She was such a great kid. She wasn’t pretty or anything, but there was an intelligence in her eyes that made you want to hunker down and have a little conversation with her. She wore her hair short and straight, with brown bangs that came below her eyebrows and from which she glanced up through when she had her head down talking about things that might even make an adult embarrassed to discuss. Her voice was soft and steady, rarely breaking, and she didn’t cry. He knew when this little girl was grown, she was going to be someone exceptional and she might even do great things in the world. Though she claimed she could read minds, he tried not to scoff or let on the whole notion was too bizarre for words. She believed it and that’s what counted.

Besides, though he didn’t believe in such matters, he was open to proof, if there was verification. If she continued the story of the abduction and could show she really knew what people thought, well…well, he didn’t know what he’d think about it then.

There were a great many mysteries in the world and humans were the most mysterious creatures ever to live. In his capacity as a police psychologist, he had come across a great many more unbelievable claims than telepathy. One officer in therapy had sworn on his mother’s life that he saw ghosts. All the time. Especially down in one section of Charlotte near the graveyard when he drove past in his patrol car. They swarmed the street and climbed over his car, he said. They shook their heads, moaning, and pointing and he did not know what in the world they wanted with him. It was to the point he couldn’t drive that route anymore. If he had to make a call, he made a wide circuit, avoiding the streets surrounding the cemetery, even if it meant taking longer to get to his destination. No amount of rational therapy he was given could convince him otherwise. There were ghosts; he saw them; that was the end of it.

Frank looked at Emily and smiled to put her at ease again. She was the only one with all the pieces to the Anderson puzzle. He wondered if she could read his mind. If so she’d know his thoughts about how lucky she was to have come through the joyride alive.

#

CROW waited until Heddy had the keys and was behind the wheel. He waited until the man was in the front tan-leather bucketseat beside her, with the mother and kid in the back seat. Then he got in the back next to the kid. He pulled out the gun then and let them see it. "I got nothing to lose,” he said. "Anyone interfere with Heddy's driving and the kid says good-bye, world, adios, muchacho."

"Tell us what's going on,” the man said.

"What's your name?" Crow leaned up toward the front seat and looked at him hard while Heddy got the car started. She pulled away from the parking lot onto the road leading away from the Long Horn Caverns.

"Jay Anderson."

"What kind of name is that, Jay? That's a fag name, it’s a woman’s name. Jay, Jayne, Joyce. You’re not a Jason, are you? I knew a Jason once, hated the fuck."

“Not a Jason. Just Jay.”

Crow sat back, turned to the woman. "And what's your name and the kid's name?"

"I'm Carrie. This is Emily."

He liked how her voice wavered. She looked scared enough to piss her pants.

"One big happy family,” Heddy said from the driver's seat. "God, this is a beautiful car."

"I'm called Crow and this here's Heddy. You just do what we say and it's all going to be all right."

"If you want the car, why don't you...?"

Crow leaned forward again to the man and lashed him on the cheek with the gun barrel. The man screeched and blood started running down from the cut on the cheekbone. The woman screamed and the little girl jumped like a live wire had been plugged into her ears.

Heddy said, "Take it easy, Crow. I'm driving here."

Jay got the pocket compartment open and that's when Crow saw the gun. He was halfway over the seat then, reaching out. Heddy started hitting the brakes, pulling to the side of the road, the car swerving in loose gravel before it came to a shuddering stop. Crow stuck his own gun into the man's neck, grinding it in. "Gimme that!"

Jay carefully withdrew the service revolver and handed it over.

"Bad move, man. I coulda blown your brains out. That what you want, me to blow out your brains right in front of your kid and ole lady?"

Jay put his hand to his face where it was swelling now and turning blue. His hand came away red and sticky. “Can I get some napkins from the console here?”

"I'm talking to you! I'm asking you a question!"

"No,” Jay said between clenched teeth. "I do not want you to blow my brains out."

"That's smart thinking. You happen to have any other guns stashed in here?"

"No."

Crow turned the gun over in his palm, scrutinizing it. "Looks like a cop's gun. Regulation issue, Smith and Wesson. You a cop?"

"No."

Crow turned to the woman, Carrie. "He's a cop, ain't he? He's got the look. He’s got the haircut. He even smells like a stinking cop. I look around, I’m gonna find a badge, right?"

The woman was crying into her hands. She started to shake her head when the kid piped up, "My Daddy'll put you in jail. You can't hit my Daddy like that."

Crow grinned. He slipped the revolver in his satchel. "Only the kid knows how to tell the truth. I'm gonna remember that."

"Oh shit,” Heddy said, looking out the side window.

"No big deal,” Crow said. "He don't scare me. You think you scare me, cop?"

"The fucking luck,” Heddy said. "We have to pick up a cop’s family."

"Get the car back on the road, the excitement's over,” Crow said. "And don't worry about Jay. He's gonna play nice, aren't you, Jaybird, old boy? Cause I have your gun. And I have your kid back here. And you're not making no more dumb moves, right?"

"Right."

Heddy let up on the brake and eased back onto the road. "The fucking luck,” she repeated. "We must be under a bad moon."

#

I’VE seen bad moons. They're always the full ones. The big fat yellow ones that drive people crazy. Daddy says when there's a full moon the loonies come out. He never seemed to notice he went loony too when the moon turned full. He'd come home with mad on his face and his eyes all narrow, talking about how many bills he had to pay, and how he wasn't ever going to be more than a patrol officer in our dumpy town, he’d never make detective. How he was sick of the scum, the gangs starting up in town, the whining business owners who wanted him to patrol their properties like he had nothing better to do, like he was a security officer instead of a cop. How he should have learned some other job, he hated this job; this job was for common idiots.

Mama would stay clear of him and try to sit quietly at the kitchen table, grading papers from school, but he wanted her to say something. Agree with him, that's what he wanted.

He'd stand right behind her, talking loud. He'd send me to my room, like he couldn't stand looking at me. I think he did that because he knew I knew he was being bad again. Sometimes he was sorry later and I'd hear him begging Mama to forgive him, but he never really meant it. She knew that. So did I. Still, he never stopped doing it.

He'd put ice in a towel and put it on Mama's bruises so they wouldn't swell and he'd say, almost crying, "I don't know what gets in me, Carrie. I’m a lousy son of a bitch, I know I am. When I think about what I do to you, I want to stuff my gun in my mouth."

Then Mama would say, “Don’t talk that way, Jay. You can’t help it. Things just get inside you and hurt.”

I'd look outside from the window seat in my room where I'd be all scrunched up, holding my knees, and I'd see the bad moon high in the sky above our little town and I'd know he was one of those loonies he said made mischief. And he didn't even know. Mama must have known, even when she made excuses for him. But Daddy just had no idea.

Anyway, this was daytime when Heddy said what she did and she couldn't know if there was a bad moon out or not. She just meant it was bad luck, getting in a cop's car, and hitting him with a gun. I was hoping it would be real bad luck for them.

Heddy didn't talk a lot. She drove. I think she was bothered by her mouth too, the half of it that didn't work right. She didn't like anyone looking at it when she was talking. She'd give you a mean look, a really evil look if she caught you watching her mouth when she talked. When she did that, she scared me more than Crow did. I always had to look away so she wouldn’t think I was watching her mouth.

Crow talked all the time. He talked too much. He said you couldn't say much in prison, it was too dangerous. People would get you for talking, either the guards or the cons, so you had to keep your trap shut. That's probably why he talked so much now he had escaped. He had a lot of words saved up.

It was Daddy who knew about that. The escape.

We were on the freeway again, heading west into the sun, when Daddy said, "You must have broke out of Leavenworth. If you headed east to St. Louis, why head west now?"

"You've been listening to your radio,” Crow said, uncaring.

"You won't get far going west, back toward Kansas."

"Shut up," Heddy said. "If we don't get out of this state, neither will you. It's none of your business what direction we head."

Daddy looked over his shoulder at us. He gave Crow a mean look. I sucked in my breath because his face was getting puffy and his eye was closing. He looked like some kind of monster from a really bad horror movie.

"How do you think we'll get past the roadblocks?" Daddy asked.

"What roadblocks?"

Daddy turned around and stared out the windshield. "They might put up roadblocks,” he said nonchalantly.

"He's lying,” Heddy said. "He's heard it on the radio. They've got up roadblocks, Crow. Goddamn."

Crow settled against the seat, thinking. "We need to get off the freeway. Find some little road..."

Heddy took the next exit, swerving enough that Crow leaned over on me. I pulled away and got closer to Mama. I could feel her, all trembly, scared the way she was when Daddy was bad.

We pulled into a gas station where Heddy parked in back, away from the pumps. A man was putting air in his tires from the air machine, but he didn't look at us. "We need a map,” Heddy said.

"Check where he had the gun,” Crow said.

Heddy opened the pocket compartment and rummaged in it. She pulled out a folded United States map. "Here's one."

Mama hadn't said anything since we'd gotten into the car. She said now, "I need to go to the bathroom."

"Hold it,” Heddy said. "No one's getting out of the car."

Crow dug in his leather bag and brought out a pack of Wrigley's peppermint gum. He unwrapped a piece and I watched him fold it into his mouth. I wanted to go to the bathroom too all of a sudden, but I knew there was no use saying so. Heddy really meant the stuff she said.

Heddy glanced up from the map. "Okay, we can catch 94 along the Missouri River to Jefferson City. I don't think they'll block that one."

"We should have headed across Kansas when we had the chance." Crow sounded sulky.

"You'd already be caught by now if we had. Besides, we needed...you know what we needed in St. Louis, Crow, don't start bitching."

"There was a search party in the woods near the caves, wasn't there?" Daddy asked, brightening.

"Shut up,” Heddy said again. She put the map away and got the car on the road.

Daddy knew he'd made a mistake talking about the roadblocks. If he hadn't said anything, they wouldn't have thought of it and maybe we would have been stopped somewhere on the interstate system. Now we were going down through thick forests to a curvy little two-lane highway, Heddy driving too fast.

That made Crow happy. He chewed his gum with his mouth open--really bad manners--and kept looking out the window, grinning.

Daddy just sat like a stone in the front seat, quiet and cold, moving nothing but his eyes. Mama held my hand and squeezed it so tight my bones mashed together. We all knew it was going to be a long trip. Maybe even into the night.

#

"HELL, Crow, they've got a CD player in this thing. Can you feature it?"

Crow scooted up to look over the seat then sat back again. "Play something."

Heddy looked over at Jay. "Where's your CDs?"

"We don't have any. We just got the car last week."

"God damn it. That's what I was afraid of. You could have bought some Doors stuff or the Eagles or something. Shit."

"Just turn on the radio, Baby." Crow slipped his hand into the leather bag he kept on his lap and took out a foil packet. He unfolded it carefully and jiggled around the little dirty looking crystals there. Then he pulled out a straw cut in half and snorted the crystals up one nostril and then the other. He felt the little girl watching him. Her gaze made his neck prickle.

"You want a hit, kid?" He held out the foil packet toward her and laughed. She withdrew toward her mother like an octopus pulling in its tentacles.

Carrie said, "Leave her alone."

"Leave her alone,” Crow mimicked. "Leave my baby alone. Like that kid ain't seen this shit in the schoolyard. Don’t get on that high and mighty horse with me."

“Just leave her alone.”

He stared at her hard until she turned to the window.

Heddy kept scanning radio stations. Light and dark whipped across the interior of the car as they drove down curving roads bounded on both sides with tall green trees. They weren't pines, that's all he knew. The trunks were thick and scaly as the backs of fabled dragons and the canopies were lush with blankets of leaves in mint, emerald, and forest green.

Crow closed his eyes on the blinking light floating over him and let the rush come. It slipped up his diaphragm into his chest until his heart was stomping like a flamenco dancer.

Best thing about Leavenworth was the drugs. You could get anything and everything if you had something of value to exchange. Hell, you could get champagne and caviar if you could pay to get it inside. He wouldn't tell Heddy his big bargaining power rode below his belt. She'd call him a queer, but that's because she didn't know what it was like inside. There were a few real queers, sure, but most of them were like Crow--selling all they had to sell and that was the flesh. In other worlds you lived other lives. Behind the walls, you grabbed your balls. No shit, Sherlock.

When he first got put in Leavenworth, a big nigger, black as midnight and wild as a train off its tracks, came to him and said, “You toss my salad, I’ll protect you from the others.” Tossing a salad didn’t sound too bad to him, but that was before he knew it meant getting down and licking out the guy’s asshole until he got off his rocks. The Mod Squad, what the big nigger called himself, stuffed it with strawberry jelly from the breakfast tray and told Crow to lick till he saw stars. So Crow spread the cheeks, shut his eyes and licked for all he was worth. What was he going to do, kill the motherfucker, him weighing two-forty and Crow barely busting scale at one-thirty?

If Heddy knew he’d sucked ass, she’d never kiss him again. Hell, he wasn’t sure he’d blame her either. But that’s how he survived prison life, tossing salads, eating bungholes, staying alive, man, drawing breath the best way he knew how.

Four years. Four interminably long years punctuated by night sweats and the horror of the endless routine of the days.

He had tried stuff in prison he wouldn't have gone near on the street. He knew outside the street punks and even some of the middleclass dopes were getting deep into heroin. He’d tried that too, but it made him so damn groggy he couldn’t even make mealtime, couldn’t finish sentences when he tried to talk, and he slept so deeply he thought he’d died. Finally, he'd settled on crank--crystal meth--as a preferred choice because it really shook him out of his skin. He didn't want to get sedated or sick or horny. He wanted to fly away, baby. Turn into pure color and rock and roll to pure sound waves. He wanted to jitter and jangle like a wind chime in a hurricane. Goddamn right!

He saw everything clearly, moved like there was a train connected to his ass that pushed him into the future.

One out of ten times he might have the shakes so bad he couldn’t tie his own shoes. It was nearly worth it. If he got too jazzed, too spaced, he went to Mod Squad and got him to keep an eye on him so the Keys didn’t haul him down to isolation or the prison infirmary.

He felt the music from an old Aretha Franklin's blues tune smoothly boring through the back of the leather seat where his head rested. It entered the tangle of his long black hair, sinuously twining between the individual shafts, snaking over the pimply skin of his skull, and then SHA-ZAM! It was in his head, lazily stirring the brain cells into soup, alphabet music soup.

Heddy's voice echoed from a canyon. "You have to do that shit when I'm driving? Crow?"

He couldn't tell her how much her question amused him. He had to do this shit, yes, he did, he had to. When she drove or when she didn't, when the sun shined and when the sky poured, when the earth turned and when it decided to stop. Didn't she know any damn thing? Besides, he didn't want to hear any prissy lectures from a woman who sipped Jim Beam like it was soda water. She stayed half-crocked from morning till night. You couldn't tell unless you got right up in her face and smelled it on her breath. Heddy held her liquor better than any man he’d ever known. Of course, Heddy was a lush, no doubt about it, but did he bug her about it? Fuck no.

He heard whispers and opened his eyes to just a slit. He saw the little girl next to him, whispering to her mother. He reached out one impossibly long arm that ended in a ham-like hand that was much too large to belong to him, and patted her on the top of the head. Good kid, good kid, don't do anything rash, kid, or I have to hurt you.

She couldn't hear his thoughts, of course. And if she could, she'd never make them out from the streams of pale violet and stark red colors that wove like ribbons around, over, and between the tumbling words...Good...kid...Good... kid...bam, she-zam, thank you, ma’am, ain’t this a lovely world?

#

I guess I have to tell you the truth. There is something funny about how I know what grown ups are thinking. I said it's just from looking in their eyes, but I’m afraid that’s a little story, like a white lie. It's more than that--how I hear thoughts.

Like in the car that first day. After Crow sucked the drug up his nose, I got all confused listening into his thoughts. I don't know how to explain it...

It's like the radio. You know how you're listening to the radio, maybe it’s a ballgame? Then some static comes over the station and another station bleeds into it and you hear a song or some commercial for toothpaste or something? That's how it is. I'd never even told my Mama about it until Crow and Heddy took us off. I guess I have to tell you because that's how some of the things happened the way they did.

Mr. Hawkins sat forward in his seat and leaned on the desk. He blew smoke at the ceiling before saying, "We've had to use psychics before."

You believe in them, I asked him?

"Oh, I don't know. They've helped out a time or two."

Well, I don't know what a psychic is, I said. I thought they told fortunes in booths at the fair and I can’t tell fortunes. All I know is I get static. Sometimes the static's like thoughts, but I'm not thinking them. So they must come from other people. I never thought much about it because I've always had static in my head, even when I was a baby, as far back as I can remember.

I never told anyone before. I’ve been afraid to. I know other people can’t do this. They'd think I'm crazy or bad moon loony and I don't think I am. I figure maybe it comes from God or something, a way to help protect me maybe. I don’t know really. I might know when I’m grown and understand these things better.

Anyway, after Crow took the drug, I started getting his thoughts all jumbled, mixed up with bright colors and long drawn out music sounds that sounded like guitars holding a note a long time. I knew about how he got drugs in prison and how Heddy wasn't any better, she drank whiskey, kept a pint bottle in her purse, and she took it like medicine. She was a lush, he thought, but it didn’t bother him.

That's when I slid next to Mama and tried to tell her in a whisper that we were in really bad trouble now. It would have been awful enough if Crow and Heddy were using us and the car to get away and they might let us go soon. But when I found out how much time they spent dreaming inside their heads with drugs and whiskey, I knew we might be stuck with them. They needed help. They couldn't do it without someone to lean on. They weren’t getting away with Crow’s escape all on their own, they weren’t strong enough.

I don’t think even Crow and Heddy understood how weak they were without us around. It was like once we were with them, our fear fed them. Not to mention that if they ran into law trouble how better off they were with a policeman and his family for hostages. Cops will do anything for another cop, anything. They knew that. It wasn’t unlucky at all, them running into us, the way Heddy said at first. They knew it was lucky, really. We were like solid gold to them.

When I tried to tell Mama in some way she'd understand me, Crow reached out his hand and patted me on the head the way you pat dogs. I heard him say, "Good kid, good kid."

But that's not all. He was thinking, I don’t want to hurt you, just be a good kid.

He didn't want me to tell Mama what I knew. I even knew about the nasty stuff, the sex stuff he did behind bars so he could keep from being knifed or hit over the head when he was sleeping in his bunk. He used the word “nigger” in his head, a word my Mama told me never ever to say. Anytime I hear someone use that word it makes me want to scrunch up my shoulders and find a corner to go hide in, ashamed I can be in the same room with someone who calls a black person that word. It makes me want to say the same thing my Mama told me. “Skin color is an accident. If you’d been born black would you want white people calling you a name like that? Would you?”

But I knew Crow had been calling them that a long time, probably all his life. He didn’t know any better, no one had taught him anything.

I looked at him next to me with his eyes closed and his head against the seat and I knew if I said much about what I knew was in his head to Mama, he'd get really mad. He would hurt me. I'd have to keep most of my thoughts--and Crow’s thoughts--to myself. If I talked about it, he'd know.

See, they were both ready to hurt us, but Crow was the one who scared me the most in the beginning. Later, it would be Heddy. It’s like the longer we were with them, the truer we could see them, the more we knew about the danger we were in.

He'd seen people hurt in prison and he'd done some of that hurting. He'd been put in Leavenworth for trying to kill a man with a pool stick. He'd gotten mad over a bet and broke the stick over the other man's head, then stuck the broken end into the man's stomach. He pulled it out and started kicking the man in the head. He'd have killed him if some other men hadn't pulled him off.

I know this because during the time we were with them, he bragged about it to my Dad. My daddy just shook his head and ground his teeth.

“You’re nothing but a gutter punk,” Daddy said.

“Yeah, like you never busted a guy over the head, you freaking pig liar asshole. I guess you’d like me better if I was one of those psycho killers that jerk off over dead bodies and eat their livers with onions on the side.”

Daddy said, “If you think you’re better, you’re sadly mistaken.”

“What I’m thinking I’m mistaken about is not throwing your ass out of this car while Heddy’s doing eighty miles an hour.” Then Crow laughed to beat the band until Heddy told him to shut up, sit back, and get a grip.

Since escaping, Crow and Heddy had robbed a gas station outside of St. Louis. Crow didn't like the way the gas station attendant looked at Heddy, like he was about to make fun of how half her mouth didn’t work right, so he shot him three times.

They hadn't said that on the radio yet because they didn't know it had been Crow. This was something I knew when Crow took the drug. He started sort of reliving it. Playing it over in his head, all of it running fast like a movie going crazy, and I got the static from him.

"That's pretty odd you know about that,” Hawkins said, lighting a new cigarette. "It's true, too. The killer was Craig Walker. The man you call Crow. Missouri State police got a make on the car that was identified as being at the scene of the crime. It matched the car they left in the woods near the Long Horn Caverns."

So you believe me, I guess, I said.

It was hard knowing things and not able to tell my mother or father. Daddy already knew they were really dangerous. He knew all about bad people so they weren't fooling him any. But Mama only knows a little about people like Crow and Heddy. She didn't know how easy it would be for Crow to pull out the gun and kill us for nothing, for looking at him funny or pushing him too far or saying something that bothered him. I was trying to warn her, but I couldn't.

The whole car used to smell like a new car. Even when we drove up to the caverns, it still smelled like new leather and carpet and vinyl. But after Crow and Heddy were in the car, it smelled like putrid stuff...old food standing in a refrigerator that’s stopped working. Curdled yogurt and green slimy vegetables and meat that’s turned gray.

"Mama, roll down the window,” I said.

"You're not rolling down the windows,” Heddy said, looking at me over her shoulder with a big frown plastered on her face. “I’ll turn up the air if you’re hot.”

"I have to go to the bathroom."

"Wait a while. You can wait."

"For godssake, she's a kid. She has to go to the bathroom,” Daddy said.

"She's a big kid, is what she is. She can hold it until we get down the road a ways."

Crow rolled his head and lifted it. He opened his eyes. "Listen to Heddy. Don't give us trouble."

He laid his head back and drifted off, coming down from the nervous strain of the drug high. I didn't ask again. An hour later, Heddy slowed down a couple of miles outside of a town and turned into a dirt road that didn’t look like it led anywhere. It wound and curved between thick trees that made a dark forest on each side. She stopped and told me to get out. And Mama too.

Crow woke up and watched, curious. “What’s happening?”

“I’m letting them take a piss.”

"Do I have to, Mama?" I asked. Because we were outside the car in a ditch now and Heddy told us to squat and pee.

"This is terrible,” Mama said to Heddy.

"It's going to be worse if you have to hold it and wet your pants. Now squat!"

Mama took me behind the car bumper and we both went to the bathroom in the road, in the dirt, leaving puddles between our knees. Mama had brought tissues from her purse. She told me not to worry, not to be scared. I couldn’t help it. I could hardly go to the bathroom. Heddy started screaming at us and finally I was able to.

I was hoping a car would come down the road and see us squatting there, going to the bathroom like animals in the road. They'd know something was wrong.

But no one came. We got back in the car; Heddy turned around and drove back to the highway.

"No more stopping,” Heddy said, once she was on the highway.

"I'm getting hungry,” Crow said. He rubbed his skinny stomach and grinned at me like he could get me to smile at him. I didn’t.

"Oh, Crow, we can't get anything right now. Let's just try to get out of this fucking state, okay?"

"Sure, okay, baby. But we get into Kansas and I want food."

“My mom lives in Kansas,” Heddy said.

“So?” Crow leaned forward until he was just inches from the back of her head. “She a good cook or what?”

Heddy grunted. “Hell no she’s no cook. I lived on oatmeal when I stayed with her.”

“Then what’s the point? She lives in Kansas, so freaking what?”

“I might go by. Just for a few minutes. I don’t think anyone knows where she lives now but me. I need to tell her where I’m going.”

“Like she won’t tell. That’s not too smart, Heddy.” Crow leaned back, exasperated.

“You let me worry about what she’d tell.”

Heddy turned up the radio and drove. She was like a machine, driving the car. She didn't talk or look at us. From where I sat I could see one side of her face, the side that worked okay. It was as paralyzed and dead as the other side. She might as well have been a wooden Indian.

I wondered what her mother was like, if she was nice like my mom, and decided she probably wasn’t. I hoped we didn’t have to go there, to her mom’s. Suddenly a feeling came over me that Crow was right—it was a dumb idea to go see Heddy’s mom. But not because she might tell anything to the police. It was something else about the idea that bothered me and I didn’t know what it was. I never figured it out until we got there either.

Crow asked questions of Daddy and Mama, but when they didn't say much, he gave up, put his head back and fell asleep again, his drug high winding down.

That's how our first day went. We were hostages heading into Kansas and we might get to meet Heddy’s mother. The vacation was over.

#

WHEN Heddy had put the Missouri-Kansas state line fifty miles behind her she said to Jay, “How much money do you have?”

“A couple of hundred.”

“Give Crow your wallet.”

She watched him carefully as he withdrew his wallet from his back pocket and handed it over the back seat.

“How much he got?” She asked.

“Two-forty.”

“Credit cards?”

“A couple. Visa and MasterCard. Oh, and there’s a Sears card too.” He laughed. “We got us a real bunch of middleclass citizens here.”

“Keep the cash and cards. He can’t do much if he’s got no money on him. I’m going to find a motel,” Heddy said, slowing for a town speed limit sign. “Then I can get something for us to eat while you watch them in the room.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Crow said.

Jay glanced at Crow. “Why don’t you let us go? You’re over the state line now. You’ve got the car. Take my money, the credit cards. Just let us out somewhere.”

“Heddy, he’s talking to me. Tell him not to talk to me.”

“Shut up,” she said, craning her head forward over the wheel to check out motel signs.

“What’s the point of keeping us?”

“He’s talking again. You hear him?”

Heddy frowned at the passenger sitting next to her. “We’ll let you go when we get good and ready to let you go. If you keep yapping, Crow’s gonna lose his cool and hit you again. I think you should shut up when I tell you to shut up. That’s just my friendly advice, though, you do what you got to do.”

Jay straightened in his seat, face forward.

Heddy spied a vacancy sign in front of a small rundown motel where the rooms were separate cabins arranged around a large semi-circle grassy drive. She turned in, parked out of sight of the office, and told Crow to watch them. He handed the cash from Jay’s wallet over the seat to her before she exited the Riviera.

It was easy getting the room farthest from the office. Most of the cabins were empty.

“The freeway took away all our business,” the old man at the counter said in a pitiful voice. “The whole town’s been dying.”

Heddy didn’t comment and she didn’t smile. She never smiled at strangers who would look at her funny because half her mouth wouldn’t move. Better they thought her sullen. She just took the key and left the office. Back in the car, she drove them to the cabin and helped Crow herd the family inside and out of sight.

“Now you keep an eye on the Brady Bunch while I go find something for us to eat.”

Crow grabbed her from behind and nuzzled her neck. He had his gun out and the kid right at his side. Heddy laughed and pulled away. “Don’t take your eyes off them. I’ll bring back rope so we can tie them up later.”

“Awright! Sounds kinky!”

Heddy almost smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her mouth.

With Heddy gone, the room began to impress itself on the people remaining in the shabby room. The family cowered and shivered as if from the frigid air that blew from the noisy window unit. Crow cursed at what a dump the place was before ripping off a threadbare chenille cover from one of the two double beds. The whooping sound of the cover coming loose from the mattress and the wheezing air conditioner were the only sounds. “I hate shitty places like this. They probably got bedbugs.”

Jay stood quietly watching from in front of a built-in desk connected to one wall. It was obvious to look at his face that he was desperately working out some kind of escape plan to put into force.

Emily backed up to the room’s window that looked out over the gravel courtyard fronting the cabin. She looked more scared than she had at any time since the abduction.

Carrie sat down wearily on the mattress and stared at the floor, her hands limp on the bed at her sides.

Jay said, “You don’t have to tie us up later. We’re not going to do anything.”

“Don’t tell me what I don’t have to do. Heddy’s right, she’s always right. I’m not about to sit here all night with a gun on all three of you.”

“We won’t give you any trouble. Haven’t we cooperated so far?”

“I’m ignoring you, Jerk-off.”

Jay hesitated. “I don’t understand why you want to keep us around.”

Crow, as he had done before, lashed out without warning, striking Jay, who stood a few inches taller, across the cheek with the gun’s barrel. It caused the larger man to stagger and bump into the desk. He reached out for the phone in order to lift it as a weapon, but Crow moved in quickly, burying the gun in Jay’s stomach.

“You really want to crawl outta here holding your guts?”

Jay’s fingers loosened on the phone, his hand moved away and finally dropped to his side. The blow to his face this time didn’t break the skin so there was no blood, but a red mark three inches long rose from his chin to his eye. Now his entire face had been battered. His left eye was hardly a slit from the first time he’d been hit in the car.

“Please, can I talk to you?” Carrie asked in a tremulous voice.

“Pretty woman like you? Want to beg me? Want to barter, lady? With your own kid watching?”

Color rose in Carrie’s face. “We haven’t done anything to warrant your behavior,” she said in a school mistress tone of voice. “My husband’s right. There’s no point in keeping us hostage. We’re not going to be able to help you.”

“Hey, come over here, kid. Mom and Pop don’t seem to get it.”

Emily slowly crossed the room.

“Leave her alone. I told you that already. We’re doing what you want.” Carrie sounded stronger and her eyes flashed angrily.

Crow reached out and hugged the girl to his leg. He kept the gun at his waist level, pointed to the child’s head. “Remember this kid’s mine. She goes first if either one of you try to get smart with me.”

Before Heddy returned with food, the Anderson family members were subdued. Jay and Carrie lay on one bed on their sides facing the door. Emily sat upright in the chair in the corner by the window. Her hands lay in her lap and her ankles dangled off the chair seat edge.

Heddy came in with two boxes of pizza and a bag containing two cold liters of Pepsi. “Good job!” She said, seeing the family so motionless and silent.

Crow turned down the volume on the television. “God, I could eat one of those pizzas whole, all by myself.”

To the family’s horror, after the pizza had been shared and eaten, Heddy and Crow started discussing leaving the two adults tied to trees in a wooded area outside of town and taking the kid with them the next day.

Carrie, too frightened of the plan to be afraid for her own welfare, protested vehemently. “Let us all go,” she pleaded. “What you’re talking about is crazy.”

“She’s kind of cute, huh?” Crow asked Heddy. “Listen, lady, we might just keep you all too. Don’t butt in.”

“You could get a boner for her? I think she’s kind of fat.”

Crow shrugged.

“On the other hand, her husband’s not bad looking...”

“You want him? Take him. It might be fun seeing a guy get it from a woman.”

“Oh god,” Carrie said, turning her face into the pillow. “You are sick people.”

“You’re a couple of real animals, you know that?” Jay said. “You’ve got the morals of weasels.”

“Take the girl into the bathroom and let her sit on the floor a while,” Heddy said to Crow. “Her daddy needs a lesson in humility from a weasel.”

#

THAT night when Heddy found a room things got really awful. They took me into the bathroom and set me against the tub on the floor. I heard everything. The sounds of someone slapping someone. The bed noise, creaking and shaking. There was a lot of laughing and my Mama was crying for a while, but I think they must have put a gag in her mouth because I didn’t hear her later. Daddy said stuff to them, really mean stuff, but they hit him again--I heard him grunt in pain--and he didn’t say another word the whole time.

I could have tried to listen in to one of their thoughts, but I was afraid to. I didn’t want to really know what was happening. I could tell it was pretty awful.

I don’t know if Heddy...did things...with my Daddy, but whatever they did that night it changed everything.

I was brought out late, maybe after midnight, and they made me a place on the floor with a pillow and a sheet over me. My hands and feet were tied, but I slept a little. I tried to lift my head to see Mama and Daddy, but I couldn’t see over the mattress. After a while I heard Crow snoring, but I never knew if Heddy slept or not. The TV was on all night, turned down low. Maybe she was watching it. I couldn’t see it from the floor, but I listened for a long time, thinking maybe the news would come on and say they were about to find Crow and Heddy. I fell asleep during a commercial show about an exercise machine. I never did hear any news.

The next morning after Heddy brought us donuts and coffee, we were untied and told to go to the bathroom, we were leaving and we weren’t stopping again for a long time. Heddy said she didn’t want to stop until she got to her mom’s house.

Daddy and Mama looked so different. It was like Daddy’s mind had slipped over the edge to peek at something gross he’d never seen before and couldn’t figure out once he did see it. He wasn’t all there. I looked at him, trying to see into his mind, but he was closed off, sealed in. His eyes darted like little lizards as he stared at the floor. He hardly ever looked up except to see where he was going. He wouldn’t look at me. Or Mama. No one.

Mama just looked sad, the way she used to after her and Daddy had had a fight and he’d hit her. She wouldn’t look at me either.

Crow and Heddy acted like they were having a party. It was like Halloween, but the monsters weren’t masked; they were real.

I guess they’d given up the idea of leaving my parents behind and taking just me. We all got into the car and Heddy drove again across the state of Kansas on small two-lane highways that went through lots of little towns out in the middle of nowhere.

They gave us hotdogs from a Dairy Queen for lunch. Heddy said she loved hotdogs better than anything. After that we had them at least once a day.

I can’t stand hotdogs now.

#

AFTER Jay was moved from the bed where his wife lay and pushed down on the other bed, Heddy got Crow to help her take down his pants until they were tangled around his tied ankles.

She unbuttoned his shirt and spread it open to reveal a bare hairless chest. She crawled on top of him and whispered in his ear. “Crow really will kill your kid, you know. If you don’t play along with us, you’re all going to be dead. Do you believe me?”

Jay twisted his face from her. He refused to answer.

Heddy reached down and took his penis into her hand. She looked over at the other bed to see if Carrie was watching. She wasn’t. Her eyes were squeezed closed. She looked like she was constipated.

Crow kneeled next to the bed, his eyes glittering with lust. She’d take care of him in a few minutes. She smiled her half smile at him and he grinned back at her like a crazy, wild baboon with the hots.

She wriggled over Jay’s body, pressing her naked flesh against his chest. She lifted herself a little and dragged her right nipple over his left one. She felt him shudder uncontrollably. He turned his face to her and stared into her eyes. She stared back, rubbing against him harder. She teased his cock and cupped his balls in her hand. She tightened her grip slowly until he tensed.

“If this takes a while, that’s all right. I don’t mind waiting. I got all night.” She turned her head to Crow. “Isn’t that right, Crow? You mind waiting?”

He shook his head, mesmerized by Heddy’s sexual extravagance. They had done this before, shared others, but never someone who didn’t want to play.

“Your wife a good lay?” She asked Jay. “I bet she’s not. I bet she’s dull as dishwater. I bet she lies there like a fucking stone. Am I right? You’re sick of her, tell me how sick of her you are. Tell me how often you’ve gone out on her and fucked her friends.

“You think I’m pretty? Hmmm?”

Heddy ran her tongue into his ear and down his neck. She left a wet trail across one nipple, flicking her tongue over his abdomen, pausing at his navel. She finally moved down and took him into her mouth.

“What a good girl you are,” Crow piped excitedly. He reached over and took hold of the globes of her ass and squeezed.

Jay was not the most useful partner she’d ever encountered, but Heddy managed to get him hard and ride him toward one strong orgasm before he bucked her off, grunting around the gag in his mouth, his penis shriveling even before it slipped from her wetness.

Heddy rolled to the edge of the bed into Crow’s arms and let him spread her on the floor between the two beds. He was so excited he could hardly wait. He got inside her and was pumping like a locomotive before she could draw a good breath. If she had been the laughing sort, she would have burst into gay, unbridled laughter at how eager he was to spend himself where another man hadn’t been able.

It was a long time before they were satiated and remembered the girl in the bathroom, sitting on the floor waiting for someone to come get her.

While Crow pulled up and buckled Jay’s trousers, Heddy led the girl into the room and placed her on a pillow on the floor at the end of her bed. She covered her with a sheet and crawled into the bed between Jay and Crow to sleep.

As far as she knew the woman in the other bed never opened her eyes all night. Hell, if she couldn’t get laid, she might as well sleep so maybe she’d have a wet dream, poor old fat thing.

Heddy laughed to herself while the two men on each side of her fell into deep sleeps and Crow began to snore.

She’d changed her mind about leaving the parents and taking the kid. It was way too much fun having everyone along. She hadn’t had so much fun in ages, goddamn if she had. Also, what if they got caught? If they had hostages along, they might have a chance to bargain their way out.

And to tell the truth, Jay had a bigger cock than Crow. The guy was hung like King Kong, for crying out loud. If he’d only start using it, what a good time she could have.

Besides, he smelled good when he worked up a sweat. Not like Crow, who most often started stinking like a homeless tramp when he got a lather up. Even if she did like a man’s sweaty scent, there happened to be some she liked more than others.

#

FRANK Hawkins settled back in the old wood secretary’s chair behind the desk when the girl began to tell him about the first night the family spent with their abductors. He realized (and thought the girl did too) that Heddy had had sex with Jay Anderson while his daughter was locked in a bathroom.

It made Frank crawl with the creeps. During their sessions, Jay had admitted to playing around on his wife. Frank tried to gently point out that it was his guilt over extra-marital affairs that helped fuel his anger he eventually took out at home on his family. Jay didn’t buy that. Too painful to accept all responsibility, of course. Much easier to deny culpability.

Jay never came right out and said he talked female lawbreakers into having sex with him in exchange for tearing up a traffic violation ticket or for reducing charges, but Frank suspected he misused his authority in that manner too. If he had ever admitted it outright of course Frank would have had no alternative but to follow procedure and report it to the sheriff, getting Jay removed or suspended.

The most liability Jay did admit to was that he frequently cheated on his wife. How and with whom was something he wasn’t ready to discuss.

Frank remembered a few things Jay had said regarding his sex life. For one thing he had strong fantasies. Now it was Hawkins’ experience that a good fantasy life was nothing to be worried about and in most instances it indicated good mental health, but Jay obsessed on the sexual fantasies to an extreme degree. Most of his waking time was spent thinking about them.

Jay had said once, “You know what I wish I could get in this country? A basket fuck.”

“I’m sorry, what’s that again?” Frank had been taking notes, most of it doodling, drawing Popeye with his corncob pipe, and he hadn’t been as attentive as he might have been. Had he heard correctly?

“You never heard of a basket fuck? I knew a guy, patrolman partner in Charlotte when I worked down here, had been in the Navy. He told me about getting this thing in Japan while on shore leave. How it works is they got the guy down on a pallet, giving him a massage. One girl is sitting naked in a basket with a hole in the bottom. Two girls get the client hard and salved or lotioned up and they position the girl right on top of him. There’s a pulley system holding the basket so all the other two have to do is lift and lower it on the guy. When he’s ready to climax, one of the girls gives the basket a twirl. I think about that all the time. But where are you going to find three girls willing to set it up? This is America, after all.”

Frank hummed a little to show he was listening, but made no judgmental call on the fantasy. A lot of guys liked an exotic bit of sex now and then, no big deal. But as their sessions wore on, Frank heard other fantasies that were even more unusual than the Japanese basket trick. It seemed that Jay had an active sex drive and an overactive imagination. If he could imagine it, he wanted it.

Heddy’s appeal had something to do with all that. There had been men who would follow a woman like her across the face of the planet. Maybe Jay had been one of them.

Frank focused on the little girl and listened as she returned to her story. There was so much missing from the puzzle of the Anderson abduction. Only the kid knew the details. If he was to understand, he had to listen closely.

#

AFTER the escape from Leavenworth, planned and executed with the help of seven other inmates, only six of whom, including Crow, actually made it away from the prison before getting nabbed, Crow split from his fellow escapees. He met Heddy where she waited for him in a rusty-paneled, smoke-belching Dodge Dart. The state police were immediately contacted when the breakout occurred and swarms of cops spread out in all four directions trying to capture the cons before the six o’clock news teams got hold of it to take it national.

They did not succeed. Within ten hours they had only corralled one of the escapees. Crow and the others had scattered into the four winds, free!

With that many convicts on the lam, Heddy told him his chances of getting away were increased. It had been her idea, months before on a visit to him, that he bring in several others on the plan. They acted as camouflage and sucker bait for one another. The cops were running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to track them all down.

Heddy said this should give them time to make a quick trip to St. Louis where she’d been living. There was a drug lab there, a big one, a really hot lab. She found this out from the crowd she ran with while he was locked up those four years. A boyfriend of a girlfriend (she claimed, though Crow figured the boyfriend was someone she was screwing) worked there, an amateur chemist, an assistant, if you will. He was the one who mentioned the back room during some unguarded moment. (In the sack with Heddy, no doubt.) It all came gushing out of him like a flash flood, she said. The money. The tables stacked with bills. It seemed that not only were the chemicals on the premises, but in a back room of the house they kept the haul from the sales until it got parceled out and moved out of the house. “You know,” the guy told Heddy, “that two fifty-five gallon drums of common chemicals can make nine billion dollars worth of methadexadrine?”

“You got a billion dollars in that house? Or nine billion?”

“Hell, no, they don’t have that much made all at once and it takes time to make the deals to off-load that much crystal--it gets distributed all over the fucking Midwest-- but still, there’s plenty of green in the back. Don’t ever breathe a word of this, though.” He began licking his lips nervously and looking around him as if he thought invisible spies watched and listened. “They find out I told you, they’d take off my balls with a pipe cutter.”

He sported dreadlocks and a tattoo that crept from his chest up around his collarbone to circle his scrawny neck. Heddy said it might have been a snake. Or a lizard. Or it could even have been a tree root. It was ugly anyway, nothing like the small black spider tattoo of her own that graced the lower portion of one buttock, or the tiny perfect sword tattoo she’d asked to be positioned over her right breast so that the tip pointed to her heart. She didn’t care what the goofy lab man’s tattoo was. She just cared about the information.

Pretending she didn’t know about his tattoo convinced Crow she’d bedded him. Why go into that kind of song and dance if she hadn’t? Not that he cared. He didn’t care. Was she supposed to swear off sex for four years while he was in the joint? He sure as hell hadn’t, had he? And Heddy was a firecracker. She liked fucking almost as much as whiskey.

They’d need money like that, like what was on those tables in the back room of the lab, she’d told Crow. They needed it to keep him out, to insure his freedom. Hell, they wouldn’t have had to rob the convenience store on the way if she could have rounded up some cash to take them across state. But she couldn’t hit the lab house alone. No fucking way.

Heddy wasn’t scared of the lab’s owners after they ripped it off; she just couldn’t pull the job alone. She was no more afraid of the gangs running the lab than she was afraid of the law, she said, and Crow knew she had never been scared of the law. She’d broken it enough on misdemeanor and a few felony charges that it had lost all fear for her. They could only kill her once, that’s what she always said.

The lab robbery didn’t make the news, of course. Thieves stealing from thieves didn’t interest Mr. and Mrs. Bobby John Smith while they got up supper for their five screaming kids. The deaths were hushed up. Bodies must have been trucked down to the river and dropped in wearing necklaces of concrete blocks during the dead of night.

Knocking over the lab house had been one chilly business. Without Heddy’s gifted idea of having them lie down on the floor all in a line with their hands positioned above their heads, he never could have been able to shoot six big muscle-bound gorillas fast enough to save his head from being ripped right off his shoulders.

With them on their bellies, though, and the duct tape Heddy wrapped around their wrists, it was a duck shoot. He simply walked down the line in front of them, put the gun to their heads, and good-bye, lowlife lab goon. It wasn’t like they didn’t know the risks in the lifestyle they’d chosen.

He had some of the money in his leather purse he always kept by his side. Heddy had more of it in her purse, the one where she carried her whiskey bottle and a change of clothes. And there was more. They hadn’t even tried to count it, though it was no billion dollars, he knew that much. Eighteen thick rubber-bound stacks of wrinkled, unmarked fifties and hundreds. That’s what they had. At least, that’s what Heddy thought they had. Enough.

“Where do we go with this?” He’d asked her after they’d left St. Louis and just before they noticed they had a patrol car tailing them--the event that pushed them toward the Long Horn Caverns.

“Anywhere your little black heart pleases,” she’d said, smiling her crooked smile.

That’s what he liked about Heddy. She knew him and still loved him enough to break him out. He wasn’t always sure he knew her so well. Like the lab house thing. That was pretty risky, slipping them in the back door, taking the place unaware that way.

The guy with the tattoo wasn’t there, must not have been his shift. Lucky bastard. His absence saved him from winding up with the other corpses found bound and head-shot in the living room of the house on Prairie Avenue.

Minutes before they saw the cop tail, Crow leaned over and gave Heddy a long kiss. “We’re rich!” He’d said.

Heddy brought her hand up to cover her mouth as she smiled. She had told him early on her mouth didn’t work right from an open-handed hit she took from her stepfather when she was thirteen. Crow crooned sweet love noises against that paralyzed side of her lips when she told him and promised to kill any motherfucker ever raised a hand to her again. Kill him deader than dead. Kill him two times.

That’s why--the money in his bag, his freedom from Leavenworth, and the promise of Heddy’s sweet frozen lips--when she changed her mind about letting the mother and father go, Crow said okay, sure, I don’t care, baby, whatever you say.

Now he sat in the back seat, Heddy driving at all the right speed limits while they rolled through small Kansas cow towns, and he tried to get to know the woman in the back seat with him. She was really too old for him, hell, she had to be thirty if she was a day, what with a kid ten years old, but if Heddy was going to get some of Jay, he definitely was going to get some of Carrie. She wasn’t fat, like Heddy made out. She was plumpish and he liked that.

He wondered a lot about her breasts and how big they were when loosened from the bra he could tell she wore beneath her cool white blouse. Her arms looked ripe and firm. Her legs, bare in the tan walking shorts she wore, were heavy, but smooth and creamy like mocha almond coffee you can get in the Stop ‘n Robs.

“What grade do you teach?” He asked.

She turned her head from the window, her eyes glazed. “Me?”

“Yeah you. You’re a schoolteacher, right?”

“I teach fifth grade.”

“Where’d you get that bruise on your arm?” He reached over and brushed his fingers lightly across a mark the size of a baby’s fist. It looked over a week old, fading away now, the purple turning the sick yellow of an overripe banana.

Her eyes darted to the back of Jay’s head and then down to her hands folded tightly in her lap.

“She doesn’t want to talk to you,” the little girl said.

“She doesn’t want to talk about the bruise, you mean. Hey, Jay! You go around banging on your ole lady, don’t you? Nice guy like you, I never would have guessed. Big strong cop. Not enough to beat on the guy in the street, is that it? You got to knock your woman around too.”

Jay turned in the front seat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Like hell you fucking don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“Do we have to talk?” Carrie asked, turning again to the window. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You like your daddy?” Crow asked the little girl.

She nodded her head.

“Even though he beats up your mom? You really like him, huh?”

He could see the confusion in the girl’s eyes. “It’s okay. I always liked my folks too, even though they didn’t deserve it. That’s how it is for kids.” He leaned forward and said to Heddy. “Tell them what happened to your mouth.”

“Let it go, Crow. I don’t wanna talk about it no more than she does.”

He settled back. “Her dad--her step-dad--punched her. That’s what happened. Messed up the nerves or something in her face. Tell them what you did, Heddy, go on.”

“I stuck a butter knife through his ribs. When he got out of the hospital he never hit me again.”

“There,” Crow said. “That’s what you do to guys knock around their women and their kids. You stick ‘em. You fuck ‘em up good with butter knives!” Then he laughed, slapping his knee, until the little girl interrupted him by putting her hand on his arm.

“Why don’t you get another car?” She asked in a small quiet voice. “There must be lots of other cars you can get.”

Crow turned to her, but his gaze shifted to Carrie. The woman hovered like a wounded butterfly pressed against the window glass. “Face it, kid. We’re your world for as long as Heddy says we are.”

She let his arm go, giving up. He looked at Carrie, staring at the bra straps through her white shirt, and wondered why she hadn’t ever taken a knife or a club or a gun to her slaphappy cop husband.

She wasn’t anything like Heddy. Heddy was great, she was smart, she got him free, but she was a cheap perfume imitation of a name brand, she was bikini underwear from the Wal-Mart, she was ham hocks and beans. Carrie was prize and prime and almost girlish in her innocence.

Oh yeah, he was gonna have her. Oh yeah.

#

CROW wanted to get in a bed with my Mama. I didn’t even have to listen in to his thoughts to know it. You could see it in his face when he looked at her.

I know about sex. They teach us in school. Men and women get in a bed together and they have parts that fit. The man has a penis and the woman has a vagina. When they’re in love, they stick them together. That’s how babies get made. Sometimes they kiss, too, with their tongues out. I’ve seen it in the movies, but that looks so nasty I can’t stand it. I wouldn’t want nobody’s spit in my mouth.

But Crow didn’t love my Mama and he wasn’t thinking about kissing. He just wanted to do the sex thing in a bed with her.

I looked at the back of Heddy’s head and wondered what she’d do if Crow bothered my Mama. She might get jealous and kill them!

Then I looked at Mama staring out the window and knew she had no idea what was ahead of her if we didn’t get away from Crow and Heddy. She didn’t know she was going to have to do...stuff...with someone she didn’t know, someone who scared her.

I tried to think what to do. Crow kept his gun and my Daddy’s gun in his purse. If I could ever get my hand in there without him seeing me...

But he kept it too close. He hugged it like you hug a baby doll. It was a fat purse and it had to have all kinds of stuff in it besides the guns and the tinfoil squares of drugs and the Wrigley’s gum. I’d never get it away from him. He might be skinny, but he was real strong. When he picked me up from the bathroom floor it was like he had picked up a bag of apples. He had all these muscles in his arms from being in prison and working out, he said.

“Where we going now?” Crow asked of Heddy once he got his fill of staring at Mama.

“I’m going to head south soon,” she said. “Soon as we make that quick stop at my mom’s.”

“I wish we didn’t have to make that stop. I’ve been dreaming of Mexico. I really did check out some books teaching Spanish like you said, Heddy, but I didn’t get far with them. About all I picked up from the Chicanos in Leavenworth was frijoles and puta.” He laughed. “Yeah, we be going down into sunshine country.”

“You’re heading for Mexico. Why can’t you let us go?” Daddy asked. It was the first thing he’d said all morning.

“Because I like you,” she said, giving him one of her lopsided grins. “Didn’t I prove that last night?”

“People we know are going to report we haven’t called in. They’ll tell the police we were at the Long Horn Caverns. They’ll put it together and know you’re in our car.”

“Bullshit. You hear that bullshit, Crow? Is that the biggest bullshit you ever heard or what?”

“Yeah, I hear the motherfucker. What if he’s right?”

“He’s making it all up. They didn’t call anyone when they were at the caverns. That was a tourist stop thing, spur of the moment. No one knows they went there.”

“That right, Cop? You’re trying to fool us? I could hurt you for that.”

Then something crazy happened. Daddy grabbed the wheel and hauled it hard to his side of the car. Crow was slammed against the car door and me and Mama fell over on him. Heddy was screaming like some kind of cat, real high scary sounds. The car ran off the road and jumped a ditch. We hit a barbed wire fence, knocking it flat. We went bumping and careening before Heddy stomped the brakes and we slid around in the middle of a cow pasture.

Daddy was out of the car and running hard as he could back toward the highway. It was a two-lane road and there weren’t many cars. One went by now and then, but not right when he was running toward it.

Crow fumbled open the back door and fell out onto his shoulder yelping. He scrambled up and pulled out his gun. He aimed it and shot at Daddy.

I was trying to get out of the car too, but Mama held me fast by the back of my shirt. I saw Daddy drop. There was the shot and then he dropped to the ground. I thought he’d been killed.

“Daddy!”

Heddy was out of the car by then, taking the keys. Crow and Heddy ran toward Daddy, both of them waving guns and I thought I was going to faint. Everything started getting black around the edges, like the world was squeezing in toward the center where Daddy lay.

I saw him sit up. I saw his grim face with dirt on it. I saw Crow reach him first and shout something. Then Heddy got there and she leaped right onto Daddy, knocking him to the ground again. She was yelling and clawing at his face while he tried to keep her off him.

The eerie thing was what happened next. Crow started laughing. It was this wild laugh that made the black and white spotted cattle move across the field away from us like we were way too alien for their company. He laughed so hard, he doubled over and held his stomach, he laughed so hard.

Then I knew Daddy wasn’t shot and he wasn’t dead. He’d hit the ground to keep from being shot in the back. And Crow was laughing at how Heddy was trying to claw Daddy’s eyes out. He thought it so funny it almost killed him.

I turned to Mama quick and said, “Mama, Crow wants to take you to bed.”

Her eyes got really round and she said, “Emily, how do you know something like that?” It sounded like she very much disapproved of me saying it.

“I...I can’t tell you, but that’s what he wants. He’s going to do it too and if he does, Daddy’s going to try to stop him and he’ll get hurt. He may get shot.”

“How do you know these things, Emily? I have to know how you know.”

“I...I hear stuff. I hear what people think.”

Mama stared at me like I had grown horns in the top of my head. “I mean it, Mama. I’ve always been able to do it. It’s real weird, but I’m not lying. Like right now, I know you’re thinking ‘She can’t do that. No one can do that. That’s telepathy! There’s no such thing!’”

Mama’s mouth dropped open. “You can read minds! Oh my god.”

“You have to believe me. Crow’s going to do something to you and if he does, everything’s going to go bad, real bad.”

“C’mon,” she said, “let’s run.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me out the other side of the car.

It was like Crow read my mind too because he stopped laughing all of a sudden and turned around. He saw us beginning our sprint across the field, Mama pulling me along with her by the hand. He shot at us and just like Daddy, we stopped and we squatted down. I thought I’d heard the whiz of the bullet as it passed us by in the air, but that was imagination, I’m sure. You don’t really hear bullets whiz through the air, that’s for cartoons.

Crow yelled, “Get your asses back in the car!”

Mama was crying, no noise, and just fat tears rolling down her face when we stood up and started for the car. I told her, “Mama, you can’t fight them. If you and Daddy fight them, they’re going to kill you.”

“I know,” she said.

“I’ll think of a way to help us,” I said.

“Oh, baby, Oh Emily, you’re just a little girl,” she said, tears choking her.

“I mean it, Mama. I’ll think of a way. Didn’t I help you sometimes when Daddy was bad? I found a way of letting you know he was coming home mad. Just don’t fight them.”

I’d led Daddy off into other avenues of thought sometimes when he started getting mad. I’d ask for help with my schoolwork or say there was a phone call for Mama--anything to break his attention to doing harm to my mother. Most of the time it worked. I knew how to get a grown-up’s attention off the track and onto something else.

Daddy was back at the car with Crow and Heddy. Now Crow was angry. He was so mad it looked like a black cloud had descended over his head. Laughing hadn’t helped him any. He pushed Daddy back into the car and slammed the car door so hard it sounded like a thunderclap.

He got into the back seat with us and shook his head as if he were disappointed. He said, “Run off again, and your kid gets a bullet in the back, Carrie.”

“Don’t hurt her,” Mama said. “It was my fault.”

“Of course it was your fault!”
“It was this motherfucker’s fault,” Heddy said, putting the car into gear and turning it around slowly in the low grass of the field.

Daddy just sat there. Crow said to him, leaning over the seat, “You try that shit again and I don’t shoot over your head next time. You could have killed us all, a stunt like that. Who do you think you are, Sly Stallone?”

“I’m bigger than him.”

“The hell you are!” Crow took his fist and knocked Daddy in the back of the head. “You’re bigger’n me too, but I’ve got the gun, you fucking pig!”

“You keep hitting me and we’re going to go around, bud.”

“What’d you say? Pull over, Heddy!”

“He’s jerking you around. Shut up, Jay. You’ve done enough today. Jay, you grab this wheel again and I’ll fucking kill you myself.” Heddy drove through the ditch and onto the highway again, the back bumper dragging the ground as it cleared the ditch. A car or two had passed, but no one had noticed the commotion in the field.

“You want to go around with me,” Crow said, in a different voice, a low growl of a voice, “and I’ll take your balls for a necklace. Don’t mistake me for one of your small town candy-ass pussies you put your chokeholds on and beat senseless with a nightstick. You underestimate me and you’ll find yourself in a grave, friend.”

“Listen to him,” Heddy said. “He’s not lying to you.”

“I’d like to take my chances,” Jay said.

“No. You wouldn’t.” Again Crow bopped him in the back of the head with a closed fist. “And if you don’t shut up, I’m going to make Heddy pull down some back woods road so I can put a bullet between your macho-man eyes.”

“Daddy, don’t,” I said, getting really scared.

“Jay, please,” Mama said, sighing so hard it filled the whole car.

Jay nodded as if to say Okay. Okay, for now. Okay, but I’m going to take the little creep down when I get the chance, just you wait and see.

#

HEDDY knew if they headed south for the border from St. Louis, they would have been caught on the road right away. It’s where they would be expected to go from the Long Horn Caverns.

Driving into the state of Kansas was to throw off the tails and to find a circuitous route down south. It was also a way to get to say goodbye to her mother. She didn’t love her. Well, she guess she did, in a way, but the woman was her entire family, the only one she had, and if she was going to leave the country, she had to say something to the only family she knew.

It took longer, going west then south, but it was the only way to stay away from the cops. By now they must have plastered Crow’s image all over the papers and the television news.

“Crow, tonight you have to change your looks.”

She was driving south across the state now and bored with the flat land, the vistas of green summer fields. She had no idea what was growing there. The closest she’d ever been to a farm was the St. Louis zoo.

“Why’s that, baby?” Crow asked. He had snorted another hit of crank. He sounded like a kid on a drunk. It made her want to reach into her purse and take a sip of Jim Beam. But she never did that in front of people. She’d do it when she could stop for gas and go alone into the bathroom. And she’d take more than a sip, by God. All her nerve ends screamed for the bitter fire of whiskey.

“People know what you look like by now. Some store clerk or gas station jockey’s gonna make you.”

“I don’t wanna cut my hair,” he said.

She glanced in the rearview mirror at him. Eyes dancing, those heavily lashed black eyes. His skin so white it was almost blinding. Black beard stubble on his cheeks. And his hair, wavy and long and black as night. She liked it a lot, long hair was her thing, but on Crow it had to go.

“Doesn’t matter what you want. We have to shave your head.”

“What?” He came up in the back seat, eyes menacing now. “I said I ain’t cutting my hair.”

“Yes, you are.” She would brook no argument on this. With his head shaved, he would look completely different. And she had to get those earrings out of his ears.

“Heddy, I know you’re trying to help, but I’m telling you right now, the hair’s staying.”

She grinned at the road ahead. He’d do what she said. He knew he wasn’t going to make it without her. He would still be in Leavenworth if it weren’t for her. She was the brain and much as he might protest, he listened in the end.

She saw a Gulf station and slowed. “I’ve got to get gas and take a piss. You watch them,” she said to Crow.

“I need to go to the bathroom too,” the little girl said.

“After me,” Heddy told her. “You just sit there quietly and don’t aggravate Crow until I get back.”

She parked by the pump and got out of the car. She walked directly to the side of the service station building to the ladies room. Inside, she locked the door. She found the pint bottle of Jim Beam and twisted off the cap. The first swallow was harsh and she winced. The second swallow was smooth as drinking warm buttered rum coffee. She held up the pint and eyed it. Needed a new one tonight. She’d go out to buy an electric razor to shave Crow and get herself a new bottle. Maybe two.

She slipped the pint into her purse, relieved herself, and stood in front of the mirror on the wall over the sink, staring at her image. The whiskey did wonders and only in minutes. She felt more herself, more real. When she got the jitters between drinks, she thought she might be about to fly apart, break up into jigsaw puzzle pieces no one could put together again. All her insides went into spasm. She got stomach cramps and a burning in her esophagus. Her mind started tripping, going in several directions at once. Nattering at her about this and about that until she thought she might go insane.

She didn’t know why Crow favored speed. That stuff warped you right up into a frenzy. He was always picking at stuff, fiddling with his purse, combing his hands through his hair, tapping out drumbeats with his fingertips, jiggling around on the balls of his feet. Some days he went without food, no appetite at all, and when he crashed he was so depressed he was suicidal.

Right now, though, she wasn’t about to worry about Crow. With the liquor racing through her system, she felt wonderfully whole. She never smiled at herself in mirrors. The dead half of her mouth could make her so angry she’d been known to shatter mirrors with her fist. But she stared into her own eyes and communicated with the smart, strong, silently watching person there.

We’ll make it. We’ll make it out alive. We’ll be so rich; we’ll party every day and every night. Forever. I’ll have a maid and a cook and a fine car, one even better than that Riviera...

Someone tapped on the bathroom door. She turned to it and clicked over the lock. If it was that kid, she’d slap her little face until her eyes rolled.

She pulled open the door, ready to go into action. It wasn’t the girl standing outside waiting. It was a man. A man who knew her.

“We just want the money back,” he said. “You know you shouldn’t have done that.”

“Rory,” she whispered, surprised to see the tattooed loverboy who told her about the money in the lab house. He wore a suit, a plaid shirt open at the collar, no tie. He looked like a businessman. Who had dressed him, his mom? Who had sent him? Heddy blinked, trying to get a handle on what he’d just said.

“They sent you? You’ve followed us?” She asked.

“Heddy, you don’t rob St. Louis. I’ve been following you for two days. I don’t know what you and the con are up to with the people in that car, but if you’ll just give me the money, you can go on your way, I’ll forget all about it. They said they’d even write off the murders and that’s pretty unusual.”

While he was talking, Heddy had slipped her hand into the purse and wrapped her fingers around the little .25 caliber automatic she carried there. No matter what Rory promised, she knew he lied.

She lifted the gun into position inside the purse slowly, aiming it at his gut. “Look,” she said. “I want you to back off. I want you to go back to your car and haul ass. You need to forget you ever caught up with us. It’s that simple.”

He gave her a fake sad smile. “Can’t do it, babe. I’ve been sent to collect.”

She pulled the trigger twice in rapid succession without giving herself time to think. The sounds were like little pithy backfires from a car. She hoped no one came running around the side of the building and turned this into real trouble.

Rory’s eyes registered shock first and then they held nothing. Before he ever fell to the ground, he was dead. She’s gotten him right in the chest where his heart should have been. She didn’t think she’d ever made such a lucky shot as that before.

Heddy stepped over him and hurried around the building. Her purse was torn and she had to carry it in her arms to keep the contents from falling out. She got into the Riviera, switched on the ignition, and pulled from the pump, the back tires giving a little squeal.

Crow said, “I thought you were getting gas.”

The little girl said, “I had to go to the bathroom!”

Heddy shook now. She had to grip the steering wheel hard. She drove the speed limit, watching in her mirrors for anyone following. She hoped Rory had come alone.

“Crow, there was someone back there.”

“Who?”

“Someone from St. Louis. That guy I told you about. The one with the tattoo? Been following us, he said.”

“Was that the sounds we heard? Was it gunshots?”

Heddy nodded. She hit the town limit and picked up speed.

“You just killed someone?” Jay asked.

“Jesus God,” Carrie said and put her arm around Emily.

“I don’t know if he was alone.” Heddy put on the blinker and passed a car. She hadn’t seen anyone following, but then she hadn’t noticed anyone before either, yet he’d been there, tailing them for days.

“Shit.” Crow leaned forward and touched her shoulder. “You okay?”

“A little shook. Not bad. I’ll be okay.”

“Someone must have heard those gunshots back at the station. They’ll remember this car was there. They’ll probably remember you.” Jay turned toward Heddy in his seat, scrutinizing her as she drove.

“You turn the fuck around and watch the road! I won’t have you watching me,” Heddy shouted. She pointed through the windshield and waited until he faced front again.

“This means they’re really onto us, Heddy.” Crow sounded nervous.

“Yeah, so the whole goddamn world’s onto us, I don’t care. We’re getting out of here, we’re going to Mexico, and any fucker tries to stop us is getting the same thing Rory got. No one’s going to hurt us. No one’s going to stop us.”

She began to slow down and took the emergency lane, finally bringing the car to a stop. She took her hands from the wheel and rubbed down her face. Then she pulled open her damaged purse and found the bottle. She opened it and drank down what was left, gulping with her eyes closed.

“You want me to drive?” Crow asked.

“No. I’ll drive. Give me a minute.” She watched the mirrors and studied every car that passed by, wondering if any of the passengers might be from St. Louis. It occurred to her that the enemies she and Crow had made stealing the drug money were more of a problem than any law enforcement group. If they could walk right up to her at a bathroom in a service station...

“Heddy?”

“I’m going, I’m going.” She put the car into gear and pulled back onto the highway.

“I can drive, you know,” Crow said.

“I’m okay, I said!”

And she was. Or she would be. Just as soon as she got the buzz on and everything stopped being so sharp-edged and confusing.

Hell, why did everything have to be so goddamn complicated? Why didn’t anything in her life ever go right?

She felt not so good. She felt pretty bad, really.

She felt like she would vomit or have a heart attack. She needed another bottle.

#

Heddy’s mother was named Jolene and people called her Jo. When Heddy drove up to the door of the trailer where it sat on a little deserted patch of land outside of the small Kansas town, Jo waddled to the door and flung it wide. She squinted at the nice car and then she leaned down and looked through the windows. She saw Heddy.

Heddy waved a little, shut off the engine, and took the keys as she stepped out. “Mama,” she called.

“Girl! I heard about Craig on the news. I wondered if that was you got him out.”

“Crow, Mama. Call him Crow, okay?”

Jo pushed two small mongrel dogs back into the trailer with her feet, then pulled shut the door. She came down the two ringing metal steps, but just before she got her bare foot to the ground she looked down and made a face. “Goddamn dog shit right where I got to walk. I swear to God I ought to eat them dogs for supper.” She waited on the step for Heddy to approach. She held open her arms and Heddy saw how the skin flapped beneath them. She was old, drunk, always drunk, and about as useless as any mother could be. Heddy still cared.

“Can we come in, Mama? We can’t stay long.”

“’Cause you’re on the run, huh, girl?”

Heddy nodded. “I guess so.”

“I told you Cr..uh...Crow would get you in trouble one day.”

Crow herded the family forward. He bowed to the old woman and said, “I love you too, Mama.”

“Shut up, you wimpy asshole. C’mon on in, Heddy. I’ll pour us a drink. Mind the dogs. One of ‘em bites.”

Heddy watched her mother open the door, scoop the two dogs into her arms, and then disappear into the gloom of the trailer. She turned to Crow, shrugged, and went inside too.

The rest followed, crowding into the tiny living room area littered with torn newspaper, dirty glasses, and dog excrement. Heddy stepped over a little pile that had dried to brown crust and dropped onto the sofa. She watched Crow push Jay, Carrie, and the kid her way. They took seats, with the girl sitting in her mother’s lap. Crow just stood there, scowling like an owl.

Jo was in the nearby kitchenette pouring two glasses of bourbon. “You want some, Crow? What about your friends, they need to wet the whistle?”

“Nah, not for me.” Crow backed to the wall by the small television set and scooted down until he rested on his heels. “Not for them, either.”

One of the dogs came up to Crow and sniffed at his crotch. Crow bopped it on the head with his knuckles. It yipped and backed away.

“Don’t be hurting my animals,” Jo said, handing the bourbon to her daughter. “Tell him he can get the hell out of my house if he’s going to abuse my animals.”

“Tell me yourself, Mama. I can hear you.”

“Don’t call me mama. I would have smothered you at birth.”

Heddy interrupted, saying, “Mama, I don’t know when I’ll get to see you again.”

Jo drained her glass and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand before she said, “I don’t reckon you came to see me much anyway.”

“I know, but this is different. I have to go pretty far away.”

“Will it be Canada or Mexico?”

“Look at her,” Crow said. “Ain’t she the smart one.”

Without hesitation Jo whipped her empty glass around and threw it at Crow, narrowly missing his head. The glass struck the wall where it was soft from termite infestation, bounded off, and rolled over to Heddy’s foot. She leaned over and retrieved it, handed it back to her mother. She mouthed “Stop it.” silently to Crow.

“Well?” Her mother asked. “Canada or Mexico?”

“Does it matter? I just have to go. And I won’t be coming back.”

Jo turned, her loose flowered house dress flapping around her ankles, and found the bottle. She poured herself another shot.

“Who’s all those tongue-tied people you got with you there? They going to?”

“Never mind about them, Mama, that’s on a need-to-know basis and you don’t need to know.” Crow laughed at his little witticism, but not for long. Jo put down her glass on the counter very deliberately and reached over to the stove for a kettle of water. Steam rose from the spout.

“I was heating water for washing dishes, seeing as how my hot water heater’s busted. But now that Crow’s here, I think I can use this hot water for scrubbing out a dirty mouth and that would be a much better use for it.”

Crow came up from the floor instantly, shaking his head. “Tell her to take it easy, Heddy. I’m in no mood for her games.”

“You started it, Bully Boy,” Jo said, advancing with the kettle swinging in her hand.

“Heddy, you tell her. Tell her now!” Crow reached into his satchel feeling for his gun.

“Mama, that’s enough. I didn’t come to fight.”

Jo halted and looked at her daughter. Her eyes slid over the other people on the sofa and stopped on the little girl.

“Kid,” she said.

Heddy looked to where her mother’s gaze was fastened. She said, “Yeah, that’s her parents there.”

“You took a kid?” Jo asked. Her words were slurring slightly and it was obvious to everyone by the way she swayed unevenly on her feet while holding the kettle aloft that she was not far away from a stupor.

“Heddy, we better go.” Crow edged toward the door. Both dogs came to him, sniffing his pants legs and whining. He carefully pushed them away, a grimace on his face.

“Why’d you take a kid, Heddy? Damnit, girl, didn’t I teach you anything? You don’t mess with old people, cripples, and kids. You don’t kick dogs and you don’t lie to a priest. Those are the cardinal rules. You don’t break them. What’re you doing with that kid?”

“Mama, I don’t want to get into that. Why don’t you pour me another drink?” Heddy held out her empty glass. Her mother didn’t look at it. She was still focused on Emily.

“What’s your name, girl?” Jo asked.

Heddy stood up abruptly. “A drink, Mama? Want to pour me one?”

“Emily,” Emily replied.

“That’s a pretty name, Emily.” Jo immediately turned on her daughter and jerked the hot kettle almost above her head. “I ought to scald you a new one, Heddy! What are you doing with Emily around a bastard like Crow? Have you lost what little brains you were born with?”

“Mama, put down the water.” Heddy’s voice was menacing. She stood her ground. “Put it back on the stove. Right now.”

“I’ll put it on the stove. After I douse you good, I’ll put it back on the stove.” She began to upturn the kettle, but just as the boiling liquid started out the spout, Heddy grabbed her mother’s wrist and held on tightly.

“Put it down. In the kitchen, Mama.”

Jo’s eyes glazed over and then seemed to come to life again. “I have to put this down, it’s killing my wrist,” she said, turning when Heddy let her go and placing the kettle on the stove burner. “I’m so weak lately. I can’t hold onto anything.”

“Let’s go, Heddy,” Crow said again, fidgeting by the door, his hand on the doorknob.

When her mother turned to her again, Heddy walked into her arms. She hugged her while the old woman stood there, her own arms limp at her side.

“I might call,” Heddy said, stepping back. “Some day.”

“Do you no good. I don’t have a phone. They shut me off. You wouldn’t have a few bucks to spare, would you? I’m all out of dog food and my animals are getting tired of eggs and bourbon shakes. Gives them the runs.”

“Christ,” Crow muttered, looking around with distaste at the newspaper-strewn floors.

“He’s no good, you know.” Jo pointed a caffeine-stained forefinger at Crow. “He’ll bring you down over this. He used you to get out and now he’ll dump you or get you killed. But you got no right to take that kid into it. That’s plain against the rules. I thought you had learned better.”

“We’ll let the kid go in a little while, don’t worry about her. Listen, Mama, take this money.” Heddy reached into her purse and withdrew a wad of bills.

“Oh boy. Where’d you get this?”

“It doesn’t matter, keep it. Buy yourself a phone. Get dog food. Whatever. And maybe I’ll call one day.” Heddy turned and motioned for the Anderson family to rise. She marched them out the door behind Crow, who was the first through the opening.

Jo reached down and hugged the dogs to her chest so they wouldn’t follow. On the path outside, Heddy turned and said, “You’re no good either, Mama. No better than Crow. And I loved you too, no matter what. At least I was good for something.”

She left her mother standing with her mouth hanging open and the dogs whining in her arms. She slammed the car door and viciously turned the ignition key. She revved the motor good and loud.

She sat a moment, thinking very bad thoughts. She thought if anyone in the car said one word to her, she’d take out her gun and kill him for it. One word. Any word. Boo. Love. Mother. Drunk. Filthy. Ignorant. Pitiful. Slow. Backward. Trashy. Crazy. Any word at all. And she’d kill him. It wouldn’t take two seconds.

#

HAWKINS watched the little girl tell him about the murder Heddy committed at the gas station. Then the tale of the side trip to see Heddy’s mother in Kansas. What a downward spiral this family’s life had taken once in the clutches of an escaped convict and his lethal girlfriend. The more that was revealed, the more Frank wondered at Emily’s resilience.

When Jay found out that Heddy killed the drug chemist sent to recover the stolen money, did he admire the woman in some way? Maybe he started to empathize with her as she took down the “bad guy” and protected herself and the loot. It was, after all, dirty money, up for grabs. Combined with her mysterious and strange sexual bravado, her willingness to use deadly force might have seemed alluring to a man teetering on the edge.

His own wife presented no challenge, and in fact her very acquiescence infuriated Jay. Heddy, on the other hand, moved around in the same dangerous world as Jay, albeit on the other side of the law.

Frank really wanted to get a handle on what happened in that car on the flight to Mexico so he could understand how a twelve-year law enforcement veteran ended up ready to throw away his family and his life in order to be a part of the criminal underground.

It was always possible, it occurred to Frank, that this wasn’t the first time Jay had walked on the dark side. There was no evidence, but perhaps Jay had already been dealing with drug dealers or thieves, taking kickbacks or bargaining for a piece of the illegal profits. Even in a small town there was money under the table changing hands.

Frank had casually asked Jay, “Do you like your job?”

It was usual the patient lied when asked this because with Frank being tied to law enforcement he held the patient’s future in his hands. He could recommend the officer be let go.

Despite that possibility, Jay answered as truthfully as Frank thought he could have under the circumstances.

“I used to.”

“Does that mean you don’t like it anymore?”

Jay wouldn’t meet his gaze. “It’s harder to like it.”

“Talk to me about the problems you think you’re having with your job.”

Jay barked out a harsh laugh. “Money, for starters. I’m shopping for a new car, trying to trade in our old one. You have any idea what new cars cost? Not much less than my yearly salary. It’s going to make us skimp on other things in order to get one.”

“Your wife works, doesn’t she?” Frank pushed aside papers in Jay’s folder looking for the information he wanted. “She teaches school...”

“Yeah, and you want to know what teachers make?”

“Point taken. All right, there are money worries. Anything else about your work you want to talk about?”

“I’m getting tired of being despised.”

“How do you mean?”

“When I first came on the force people showed some respect for cops. You know how they are now. To the public we’re about one notch above the killers and rapists. They don’t trust us, they don’t want to see us unless they call and then they want us there in two minutes flat to lay our lives on the line for their safety.”

“You resent your place in society.”

“I guess you could say that. Were you ever on the street?”

Frank sat back from the force of Jay’s vehemence. There was enough anger there to blow fuses. “I was on the street early on, sure. It was some time back...”

“Then you don’t know what I’m saying. If you haven’t been out there lately and felt that disdain, you can’t imagine how thick it is.”

“I’d think in a small town such as yours...”

“It’s no different! I’ve had grade school kids call me pig, the homeless, what few we have, spit on me, and one rich society bitch threaten she’d get my badge if I didn’t agree cheerfully to keep a round-the-clock watch on her palatial home while she flew off to Paris for two weeks.”

“That’s tough,” Frank remarked, having heard some of these same complaints before. He knew it was no picnic out there, big city or small town, but Jay’s anger was out of all proportion to the perceived insults he suffered from “the public.” He was walking around with a chip on his shoulder so big it was about to topple him over.

When Frank carefully suggested that maybe Jay should think of looking for another line of work, he grew abusive.

“Yeah, why don’t I go for your job? Sit in a nice office with bookcases and an intercom. Spend my days safe and warm, listening to sob stories.”

“Is that called for?” Frank asked.

Jay stood and paced around the small office. “Maybe not. You asked how I feel and what about thinking of another job. I’m sorry, I seem to blow like this all the time. It’s why I’m here, isn’t it? As for other work, I’m not trained for anything else. I guess I could go into security, but I hate that. It’s about as exciting as branding cows on a farm.”

Frank concluded that Jay could turn into a dangerous man. Feeling trapped and unappreciated, in need of more money for a better lifestyle, furious with his stake in life, he was ripe for some kind of fall.

Frank’s attention came back to the little girl’s story. After cold-blooded murder, and the stop at Heddy’s mother’s trailer, what had Heddy and Crow done then? And what was Jay’s part in it?

It was important to know as much as he could find out. He’d had a stake in Jay Anderson for months and the books couldn’t be closed until he found a way to understand how it all came down.

#

THROUGHOUT the long day Heddy drove relentlessly, her silence a heavy cloud that hovered over and informed the other occupants of the car. She stopped for gas once where she and Crow took their hostages to the bathroom one by one. She stopped again for food around noon, hotdogs and fries and shakes at the drive up window of a Dairy Queen.

By afternoon even Crow had grown morose from spending hours trapped in the silent car. He began to complain, at first in a joking way and, then, when Heddy did not respond, more noisily.

“I can’t take another hour in this car, Heddy. You’re going to have to give it a break.”

Heddy failed to reply. She drove steadily, her hands gripped hard on the steering wheel. She smelled of booze and desperation. The combination cast a sour scent over the air inside the car.

“Heddy, now goddamnit, you let that dead son of a bitch back there throw you like this and it’s not going to help our chances. Or if it’s that thing with your Mom, hell, brush it off. She can’t help herself. But whatever it is, I have to tell you I am not going to sit in this car every day while you fucking sulk.”

“She’s thinking how much she likes me,” Jay said.

“Oh your mouth,” Crow said, fairly shouting. “He’s getting to you, Heddy. I can’t believe you’re letting him do that.”

“I’m finding a place to stay the night,” Heddy said quietly. “If you’ll just shut up. Christ, I get tired of trying to get y’all to shut up.”

Crow jerked back in the seat and sat fuming. He had tied a dozen knots in the leather straps of his shoulder bag. Now he set about untying them to keep from hitting someone in the face. He knew he was dangerously close to losing it and he didn’t want to do that. He never should have done more crank when he knew there was this much tension. Speed put him out of control--what he usually wanted--but he’d made a mistake doing so much of the drug while trapped in a car, unable to move around and let out the streams of energy that rolled off him like clouds of steam.

Within fifteen minutes of announcing she was going to stop, Heddy slowed in a small town just over the border in Oklahoma. She found a little motel on the outskirts and got a room with two double beds. Once they were all inside, she stood with her hands on her hips to address Crow.

“We’re being followed.”

Surprise corralled his face, pulled it down and threw it in the way you hog-tie a calf and throw it to the ground under the five-second bell. “You know that for sure?”

Heddy saw Jay grinning and pointed to him. “He knows it. It’s a little dark blue car. It picked us up not far outside that town where I had to shoot Rory. It must have followed us to my Mom’s and waited somewhere.”

“So they know you stopped here, at this motel. Jesus Christ, Heddy..!”

“Whoever it is, they would have known no matter where we stopped. What we have to do now is stay on watch.”

“I dunno...maybe if we offered to give the money ba...”

“Crow!”

His head came up at how she’d interrupted him. “What?”

“We ain’t giving back nothing, nothing, you hear me? It’s ours. We need it and we’re keeping it. So just get that out of your head.”

“You took something you shouldn’t have,” Jay said in a voice that showed he was interested in all the details. “It’s not the cops you’re worried about now, is it? Don’t you know you’re involving innocent people in your screwed up little affairs? You need to let my wife and child go at least.”

“Tie him up,” Heddy commanded. “I’m going out to find something to eat.”

Crow bound Jay and pushed him onto one of the beds. He left Carrie and Emily free. He started pacing the room, passing the bed where Jay lay, and watching him carefully the way a hyena watches a crippled antelope on a wide-open plain.

“What’d she get you into?” Jay asked. “I know you do what she says and you think she’s bright, but now she’s dropped you into a world of trouble, hasn’t she? How smart is that? Maybe you ought to try making your own decisions for a change.”

Crow passed a small lamp on a table opposite the bed, grabbed it, ripped the cord from the wall and hurled the lamp at Jay’s head. It missed, muddy brown glass shattering against the headboard. Carrie gasped and Emily let out a short scream before she covered her mouth with her hand.

“Go ahead,” Crow warned. “Keep it up and see what it gets you. Talk about Heddy some more why don’t you? Bad mouth her when her back’s turned. You think I don’t know what you’re doing? Split us, turn us against one another, that’s what you’re doing. I’m not completely STUPID! Do I have a sign on my back saying I just joined the human race?”

Jay kept quiet. He glanced at his wife and back at Crow still standing over the end of the bed, furiously slapping at one thigh with his hand, the repetitive action a nervous tic.

“I’m not saying a thing,” Jay finally said.

“It’s about goddamn time, man. I get tired of it and there’s no predicting what I might want to do to you. But it won’t be pretty so keep it zipped, okay?”

“Must be the mob you stole something from,” Jay said.

“Oh man!” Crow was on the bed like a flash, pummeling Jay in the gut with both fists while calling him names and threatening to shut his mouth permanently. Jay’s hands were tied behind his back and all he could do was head-butt and knee the other man. Carrie rushed to rescue her husband and Emily was at her mother’s back, trying to pull her away from the melee.

Carrie hauled back on Crow’s leather vest until he slipped to the floor. He jumped to his feet, fists up, glaring at her. “I ought to give you some of it,” he said.

“Please, please,” she said, “can’t you stop this, can’t you just stop it? Please, stop it.” Tears slipped down her face, making snail tracks of silver over the tanned smooth planes of her cheeks.

It was as if window shades had snapped up in the depths of Crow’s eyes to let in the light of reason. His fists relaxed and he stepped around the bed. Carrie tried to turn away and to wipe her face. He put his arms around her body, pulling her into his embrace. She turned her head away from him and he reached up and brought her face back to his own. He looked down into wet brown eyes and said, “You’re a good woman, taking up for your man that way. I’ve always been a fool for good women.”

Carrie tried to break away, but he held her. Then he leaned forward and pressed his lips on hers. When he was done, he let her go so that she stumbled back. Crow turned to Jay on the bed where he was trying to get back his breath from the beating he’d taken. “You see what I did? You need lessons or something? You hit a woman like this, you bastard? Even I wouldn’t hit this woman. And you think you’re better than I am, don’t you? You’re the law, you’re The Man, and I’m this scum you like to step on. But I’d never hit a woman willing to stand up for me. Live with that why don’t you?”

Crow spit toward the bed then moved to the window to look out for Heddy. A war between hatred and passion fought on in his brain so that he couldn’t look at Jay or he might kill him and he couldn’t look at the woman or he might want to take her. Here, now, no matter what anybody thought.

#

IT was like Crow was a wild puppet. Someone invisible pulled his strings and he danced. When he went for Daddy in the motel room that second night, I thought he was going to kill him then. How many times now had I worried my parents would be killed and they’d survived? It was like watching Wily Coyote falling off cliffs, blowing himself up, getting flattened by anvils. He died and he died and he died trying to catch the Roadrunner, but he didn’t really die.

I was afraid I’d start thinking that way about us. If we kept getting close and yet not dying, maybe it wasn’t real. But it was, the threat was very real and every time Crow attacked Daddy I thought it was for the last time. It made my whole insides go crazy. I got gas and had to go to the bathroom to pass it so no one would hear. I think it’s real nasty and embarrassing to pass gas in company. I’d just want to die if I did it in front of anyone. I got a headache and stomachaches and even my legs started hurting, I don’t know why.

It’s real hard on you to want to get away from someone and you can’t. Your whole body gets tight so that your fingers twitch and your neck shrinks down into your shoulders and your stomach’s always doing flip-flops or knotting up. I could put my hand flat on my stomach and feel the knot, like a ball of string I’d swallowed in my sleep.

When we’d stopped at the trailer where Heddy’s mother lived with the dogs and the messy stuff on the floor, I think we all lost our tongues. Mama and Daddy never said a word. Not even when we left and we could see how upset Heddy was. I told the woman my name and she got onto Heddy for keeping me hostage, but it didn’t do any good. I could tell it wouldn’t. I had gotten some of the cold thoughts streaming off Heddy when we were on our way again and I could tell she’d never listened to her mother, about anything. She thought her mother didn’t love her. She thought she was unlovable and ugly and she was so full of hatred that I knew none of us better say anything to her. It took hours for her to snap out of it and find a motel.

When Heddy came back she brought Popeye’s Fried Chicken, red beans and rice, and coleslaw. No one could eat a thing except Crow. He ate like a big dog, shoving it in, eating with his mouth open, making smacking, chewing noises. I had to look away from him to even get myself to take a bite from a chicken leg. I guess nobody ever taught him any table manners. Maybe he never had a mother or father to teach him. Maybe he was one of those runaway kids who grow up on the streets--like Daddy called him--a gutter punk. Still, didn’t he know how awful it was to watch him eat with his mouth open?

After we ate, Crow tied us up and then Heddy brought out a big razor machine from a shopping bag. It was a scary looking thing, black, with a row of teeth along the edge. If she had wanted to torture us, that was the instrument to use, it seemed to me.

Crow grabbed his hair in both hands and said, “No, uh uh.”

“You keep that hair and you’ll wear it back to prison. Or worse.”

“What could be worse?”

“The lab people catch us.”

Daddy lifted his head from the bed. “Lab?”

“Ignore him,” Heddy said, frowning at Daddy.

“I might take off a couple inches,” Crow said, eying the electric razor.

“You’ll take it all off. I’ll give you a burr cut. Let’s go in the bathroom so you can sit on the toilet seat.”

Crow grumbled and swore, but he let his hair be cut off until all he had left was a half-inch of fuzzy black like a monk’s cap covering his head. When he looked in the mirror, he yelled and stomped into the room where we were lying on the beds.

“This is for shit, I look like a skin head, I look like a Jew ready for the showers! I never should have let you talk me into it.”

I almost laughed seeing him. He looked like a kid who just joined the army. His ears were too big, sticking out from his head like Dumbo, the elephant. His eyebrows were too thick, black as worms covered in dirt. Everything about his face looked too large and cartoonish without the long wavy hair that had made him look almost handsome in a hoody-street-boy sort of way.

“Take off the earrings too,” Heddy said. “And go through Jay’s suitcase, find one of his shirts to wear. Hang up that vest, we’ll leave it here. It smells anyway.”

“Why do I have to do everything? What about you?” He reached up to slip out the silver arrows dangling on chains from his pierced earlobes.

“The cops don’t have photographs of me.”

“But the guys in St. Louis know you.”

Heddy rustled in the shopping bag lying on the table and brought out a wig. It was short, dark brown, and curly, like the head of a mop. Her own hair was long and sandy blond; it fell in a part in the middle of her head and looked like it needed a good cut. “I didn’t forget,” she said. She waved the wig at him.

“Maybe you could have bought me a wig too, goddamn it.”

Heddy moved up to him and circled her arms around his waist. “Now, now. Who’s your baby?”

The wig hung from her hands behind his back now. She kissed Crow, opening her mouth so I saw her long pink tongue. They kissed for a long time. I watched. I couldn’t stop watching them. They weren’t like anyone I’d ever known. Being with them was like visiting a weird people zoo and getting a chance to look at the new freaks on exhibit someone had found in some strange country I didn’t even know the name of.

When she stepped away from him, she put on the wig, struggling to tuck her own hair beneath it. She looked like Shirley Temple from those old black and white movies my Mama watched on TV sometimes. Little Miss Marker. Except for her mouth, that made her ugly.

Crow laughed at seeing her. They began a pinching contest. First he reached over and pinched her boob and then she pinched the skin on his belly, then he pinched her earlobe. They chased one another around the room, hopping on the beds, stepping over us, pinching and playing chase and laughing out loud to beat the band, just like kids do.

I have to tell you something now I don’t know you’ll understand. While Crow and Heddy were playing games and acting funny, I started liking them. I don’t mean that I liked them a lot or anything, or wasn’t scared of them anymore. But just for those few minutes I realized they used to be little kids who had never done anything wrong. Those kids were inside them now, prisoners, just like my Daddy’s nice little kid-self was inside him, hidden away. And my Mama’s brave little kid-self was inside her, staying quiet so no one knows it’s there, no one knows how much courage she has.

Do grown-ups all have their kid-selves inside them yet? I didn’t know, but that’s what it looked like. Crow-the- kid and Heddy-the-kid got loose that evening in the motel room and there they were, wearing wigs and thinking up disguises and playing chase like nothing in the world was wrong with them that couldn’t be fixed.

Then Crow did something that made me stop liking the silly kid games they were playing. He hopped on the bed where Mama was sitting and pinned her on her back. He called to Heddy, “You think it’s time I sample this one?”

“Hey, go for it. Fair’s fair.”

Before I knew it I was out of the chair and pulling on his arm, trying to get him off my Mama. Daddy was up too, off the side of the other bed and reaching across the mattress saying, “You don’t touch her, you bastard.”

Crow pushed Daddy away, causing him to fall back. Heddy said in a deep voice, “You move away.” We turned to see her and she had a small handgun pointed at Daddy. “Fair’s fair, I said. Get over there, on the other bed, now.”

Crow crawled off Mama and stood between the beds, tying Daddy’s hands behind him and his feet at the ankles. Daddy said, “You better not do it.”

“Hide and watch, Jaybird.”

With Daddy all tied up, Heddy got hold of the back of my hair and marched me toward the bathroom. I said, crying now cause I couldn’t help it, “Don’t hurt my Mama.”

“No one’s hurting nobody. Get the hell in there.” She pushed me inside and shut the door. She called through it, “And don’t come out unless I tell you to.”

“Leave my mama alone!”

Crow must have changed his mind. Or came to his senses. Or something. Because I stood a long time with the side of my face pressed against the door, listening and I heard them talking--Crow and my mama. I couldn’t stop crying. Snot was running down over my lip and I blubbered like a stupid little kid. Hadn’t I known Crow would do it? Hadn’t I warned Mama?

I’m so glad Crow didn’t do what he was thinking of doing. I heard him say, finally, “Oh hell, I was only kidding. I’m not going to do nothing. Shit. It was a joke.”

You have to know my mama to know how really bad a thing it was Crow had threatened to do. She told me once how she’d never had real boyfriends until she met my father. How she loved him more than life itself in the beginning. I think even though she was going to leave him after our vacation trip, she still loved him and no one else. She sure didn’t love Crow; she was scared of him. Forced to have sex with him, nobody to help her, no way to stop him, while Heddy looked on... Well, it was the worst thing that might have happened. I don’t know how she did it, but Mama talked him out of it.

“We can stop for a while if you want to.” The psychologist handed me his handkerchief. He smoked and paced and moved his hands around like he didn’t know where to put them.

No, it’s all right, I want to tell you the rest of what happened that night, I said, mopping my face dry and sitting up straight in the chair. Just thinking about that night made me cry.

Anyway, I said, they didn’t keep me in the bathroom long. The games all stopped when there was a knock on the door.

Crow was suddenly at the bathroom door, opening it and putting his finger to his lips to make sure I didn’t say anything. His face was serious again, and it was the color of ashes in a fireplace. He reached into his satchel he carried in his arms and brought out a gun.

“It’s your friends,” Daddy said. I could see him lying tied up on the bed. I looked at the other bed for Mama. She had curled into a ball, her back to me, the cover pulled up to her neck. She was all right, but she didn’t want to talk to Crow anymore. Or anyone else.

I wanted to run to her, but Crow pushed me up against the sink and blocked my way. I really hated him. If I had been big as he was, I would have hurt him how ever I could. I never felt that way before, where I wanted to hurt someone. It made me mad Crow caused me to have those feelings. I’d promised myself I’d never be like Daddy, hurting people when I felt like it.

Daddy said again, when the knock came, “Must be your friends.” I don’t know why he kept pushing them. He couldn’t help it, I guess, especially now they’d threatened and scared Mama. Every chance he got he said stuff to them that made them mad enough to kill him. This time, though, neither of them paid him any mind. They were just too busy figuring out what to do. I could see neither of them had a clue what the knocking on the door meant.

Crow slipped from the bathroom to the motel door and stood beside it, the gun raised. He nodded his head at Heddy to stay back and say something. She called out, “Who is it?”

“Manager. I forgot to write down your driver’s license number, ma’am.”

Heddy took a deep breath and Crow moved back from the door. He returned to the bathroom with me and closed the door part way, the light off so he could watch. Heddy got her wallet from her purse and went to unlock the door. I remember thinking she must have all kinds of false ID. She couldn’t very well show them a license under her real name.

I didn’t like being in a dark room with Crow. His pants were sagging over his skinny behind because he hadn’t taken time to put on his belt. He was fidgeting, the gun moving in rapid little jerks in his hand. I moved to where I could see out, trying not to watch how Crow was behaving.

As soon as Heddy had the safety chain off and the door open a crack, she was pushed back, the door forced in toward her. A man with a black gun with a long barrel on it came into the room and shut the door behind him. He had on tight jeans and a brown tee shirt. He looked like a college kid, kind of cute. He had blue eyes with long black lashes and he smiled pretty, even if the smile didn’t go with the scary looking gun in his hand.

Heddy said, “What the hell you think you’re doing?”

The man took in Daddy tied on one bed and Mama covered up on the other, then he looked at the bathroom door and must have seen Crow. He reached out to grab Heddy. That’s when there was a shot that made my ears ring and...and...

I don’t have to tell you how it looked, do I? You’ve seen that stuff before, haven’t you? As a policeman? When people get shot? I never thought I’d ever see real blood, see real people shot and dying.

What happened next went real fast. I could hardly keep up, trying to see what was going on. My heart was beating like crazy and I realized I was holding my breath.

The man was down and Heddy kicked away his gun. Crow came out of the bathroom, shaking his head, mumbling curses.

“Get him untied,” Heddy said, motioning at Daddy. “We’ve got to get outta here.”

Daddy was pushing them again by saying stuff, but they acted like they didn’t even hear him. We were out of the motel room and on the road within minutes, I don’t even know how we moved that fast. I had to help Mama. She wasn’t...she wasn’t all the way buttoned up... She kept saying, “Hush, baby, hush.” even though I wasn’t saying anything.

I couldn’t stop remembering the college boy on the floor where we stepped over him. He really looked like someone who should have had books in his hand, not a gun. I thought all criminals were slimy looking. On TV and in the movies the bad guys wear dirty clothes and they look all crooked and beat up. They frown, not smile; they have scars and pimples and pockmarks. I was figuring out that bad people looked like the rest of us most of the time. That wasn’t fair. You’d never be able to tell one from the other. You’d never know when to be afraid.

The boy we left in the motel room had a hole in his belly and his hands over it. He was moaning, but not very loud. Blood came from between his fingers and dripped around them back onto his dark shirt. I couldn’t see his eyes, his face was turned to the wall and his knees were drawn up.

I thought Heddy and Crow would help him, but they wanted us out of there. Away from there. Someone would have come to investigate the sound of the gunshot. They didn’t have time to check on the man who had probably been about to shoot them anyway. That’s what they said when I asked them. That’s what they told me.

“You don’t stop to call an ambulance for a guy who would have shot you dead,” Crow said. “Let’s get our priorities straight, kid.”

Heddy drove too fast. The car felt like it was a rocket ship roaring down the road. She passed every car in sight while Crow talked and talked and talked. He was a tape machine, turned on to fast forward. Daddy talked some more too, but no one listened to him, like he was a turned off machine or he was speaking behind a screen or something.

I thought we were going to have a wreck, Heddy drove so fast.

And then we did.

#

ONE moment she had it under control. The next moment she had hit a deep puddle of water standing on the highway from a shower earlier in the evening, and the car was hydroplaning across the center dividing line toward an oncoming car.

Heddy screamed, over-compensated on the wheel, hit the brakes, and the Riviera fishtailed despite the new, supposedly safer brake system. The oncoming vehicle, an old Volkswagen bus, nicked the rear panel of the Riviera and both of the cars caromed off the pavement and back onto it again. Two other cars, each coming from opposite directions, slammed on brakes, but entered the maelstrom nonetheless.

For several moments the occupants of the Riviera rode a rollercoaster ride, taking jolts that threw them against the car doors, the dash, the wheel, and even the roof of the car. Heddy had both feet on the brake, had it stomped clear down to the floor, her teeth clamped shut and grinding, her mind going blank, all time telescoping into a few infinitesimal moments.

Rending metal screamed like train wheels braking on hot rails and cracking safety glass spidered, then popped. The twin air bags in the front seat exploded with a loud whooshing sound of air, covering and pressing both Heddy and Jay back into their bucket seats, burning their faces, scaring the life out of them.

Seconds later one of the two air bags in the back seat exploded into Crow’s face, knocking him sideways into the door. His head banged against the window so hard he was knocked out instantly. Emily was thrown to the floorboard and Carrie was flung across the seat lengthwise, her head landing against the inflated air bag.

Finally, after what seemed an interminable length of time, all the motion stopped and the car died.

It was a five-car pile-up. From Heddy’s vantage point it seemed to her the driver of the Volkswagen was dead. A matron with steel silver hair slumped over the steering wheel with her skull cracked on the windshield. Blood ran from the wound to cover her face.

People in the remaining three cars were in various conditions from dead (a teen male driver of an older model Mitsubishi Galant), to slightly injured (his passenger, a young girl who looked to have suffered mere bruises where the seatbelt held her in position during the crash.) In the third car, a white Chevrolet Caprice, the driver and passenger, two men, seemed shaken but unharmed. The front of their car had bumper damage and the hood was crimped, but otherwise they had come into the wreck at a slower rate of speed and had been able to avoid the worst of it.

Cars stopped, halted by the debris and carnage blocking the highway, drivers stepping out of their vehicles to lend a hand.

Heddy pushed and finally got the air bag out of her face and to the side. She put both hands against her cheeks. They felt hot to the touch and raw, as if the first layer of her skin had been peeled off. Tears blinded her until she rubbed them from her eyes.

She looked around the interior of the Riviera. Panic overrode the first adrenaline rush of fear that had taken her when she hit the water and went into the slow-motion spin. Have to get out of the car. Cops will come soon. Over and over, that’s all she could think, get out, get away, hurry.

She saw Jay pawing his way from beneath the air bag and said to him, “Get out of the car and to the side of the road. Wait there. You say a fucking word to anyone, I’ll shoot Emily in the head and I mean it.”

He twisted in his seat to see his family. His face was also burned red from the impact of the exploding air bag, but he seemed not to notice it. “Em? Carrie?”

“I’m all right, Daddy.” Emily peeked up from behind the seat. “I just bumped my head and my knees, I think.” Her voice was shaky.

“I hurt my arm,” Carrie said, rising from where she lay across the seat, holding onto her left arm.

“Get out of the car!” Heddy roared.

Jay fumbled for the door and unlocked it, then stumbled out.

Heddy couldn’t get her door open. She realized after a struggle that it must be crushed in. She caught a glimpse of other people in the several car lights that lit up the highway and the wrecks. It looked like a nightmare to her. She wished she was dreaming, but she knew this was for real and they were in pretty deep trouble. Someone might be dead (the driver of the Volkswagen and the kid in the Galant) and maybe someone in the cars stopping on each side of the wrecked cars had a cellular car phone and was already calling the cops.

She crawled across the center console between the front bucket seats and out Jay’s side. She hurried around the car to where Crow was. He sat with his head against the spider-cracked window, perfectly still, his eyes closed. The air bag was crumpled all around him, like a cushion an assassin had pressed down around his head. She jerked open the door and had to catch him as he fell toward her. “Crow! Wake up, get up, Crow, are you all right? Damn!”

His eyes slowly opened and then he blinked several times as if he didn’t know her. Finally he said, “We still alive?” His upper teeth must have bitten down on his lower lip because it bled a bright red stream down his chin and neck.

“Come on, try to stand up. They’ll be cops here soon. We have to get away from here.”

He pulled himself up by holding onto the door. He surveyed the damage to the car and, with Heddy, realized that it was totaled. The front end was crushed, the driver’s door was bent in the middle, and along the side of the car were streaks of metal scraped bare. “Christ, Heddy...”

“Let’s go.” She reached into the back seat and withdrew his leather satchel. “Here, take this, move it!”

Heddy knew she possessed the coolest head and she had no injuries beyond the facial burns, at least she couldn’t feel anything else wrong yet. It was up to her to get them out of this.

She hurried Crow away from the car, avoiding the headlights, and over to the side of the road. Someone came up to them, an elderly man in overalls. He said, “You’re hurt, let me help you.”

Heddy snarled, “Get the fuck away from me, man,” and he backed away, surprised.

Crow was stumbling, but his steps were surer as they reached the gravel lining the road where Jay stood holding Emily in his arms. Next to him stood Carrie shivering, keeping her arm close to her body. Jay was already surveying the wrecked cars looking for someone to help them, someone to report to, Heddy saw it in his face.

“Move it,” she said, slipping her free hand into her purse. It was a new one she’d bought at a discount department store when she had gone out earlier to pick up the chicken for dinner. It was a big forest green vinyl bag and it held, besides the money and her gun, two pints of Jim Beam. It seemed a lifetime ago that everything had started going wrong. The guy at the service station surprising her at the ladies’ room door. The boy who stepped into the room with a gun to which a silencer had been attached. And now this...

She herded the family before her and steadied Crow with one hand on his upper arm. They passed by the other wrecked cars. Heddy saw the female driver of the Volkswagen and knew she was either dead or completely knocked senseless. She wasn’t moving while two men tried to pry open her stuck driver’s door. She saw the kid in the Galant, his girlfriend on her knees in the front seat, hanging over him and wailing. People were at her door, trying to convince her to come out of the car. Spilled gasoline from ruptured tanks created rainbow sheets sparkling across the pavement. Heddy wrinkled her nose at the stink. The whole place could go up with one spark. Outta here, had to get away from here.

All total there were probably eight cars and trucks at the scene, but most everyone had exited their vehicles to try to help the people still remaining in the wrecked cars. They paid scant attention to the five stragglers making their way past the stalled cars into the darkness beyond. Too many people all over the place, too much activity.

Heddy looked around and saw the road was bounded on one side by a forest and on the other by open fields. She said, “We’ll head across the road, into those trees.”

They lost the glow of headlights as they moved deeper into tree cover. The land was flat and it was clear between trees so the going was easy. After they were in a couple of hundred yards, Heddy told Jay to turn right. She hoped they were following the road and could come out far enough away from the wreck to catch a ride. Not catch a ride, actually, but take one.

Her face kept burning so that she put her hand up to her cheeks over and over, wondering how bad it looked, how red it was. Yet they’d been lucky, all of them, to escape serious injury.

They could get away from this mess if they hurried. They were behind the highway patrol’s back if she was right about this maneuver. Who the hell knew? She was like some kind of glider that sailed in the clouds, going whatever way the wind blew.

Carrie was making sounds. Heddy said, “Shut up, you’re not hurt.”

“Where are we going?” Jay asked, but he continued walking.

Crow kept wiping his lip and saying, “Shit, I’m all bloody, shit, look at this shit, how’d that happen, Heddy?”

“It was an accident, how’d you think it happened? No, really, I decided there wasn’t enough excitement and thought I’d plow into an oncoming car. You dumb fucking goof.”

“Can it, will you? Where we going?” Crow wanted to know, unconsciously echoing Jay.

“I hope we’re following alongside the road and we can come out above the wreck. I’ll flag down a car.”

“Maybe you’ll flag down a patrol car,” Jay said. “Maybe you better flag down an ambulance. My wife’s hurt and Emily might be hurt too.”

“I’m okay, Daddy.”

Just then they heard the sirens and knew the ambulances and cops were closing in. Everyone stopped, even Heddy, to listen. She judged they were too far away to ever find them now. She couldn’t even make out any individual lights from the direction of the highway, only a hazy yellow glow that came through the tops of the trees. At any moment she expected to hear an explosion and the whole area light up with flame.

She pushed them onward and for another twenty minutes they walked through dark silent woods, no sounds other than their feet on the soft cushiony leaf fall on the ground and an occasional whimper from Carrie. Even the kid was quiet, walking next to her father, holding onto his hand to keep from falling in the dark.

When Heddy thought they were far enough from the scene, she instructed Jay to head back toward the highway. At the woods’ edge, she turned to Crow and put both hands on his shoulders to look into his face. “You okay now? Can you keep an eye on them until I get another car?”

He grinned a little then winced and wiped at his split lip. “Yeah, I got it wrapped.”

“I wish that was true.” With that she stepped away from the treeline and crossed a soggy drainage ditch, her shoes sinking and squishing, to the roadside. She saw a car coming toward her, its headlights small white eyes cutting through the darkness. There was no lighted bubble on top so she hoped it wasn’t a patrol car. If it was...hell, she’d know what to do if it came to that. You did what you had to. That’s what she and Crow had been doing for days now. Whatever the situation called for, they did it. You didn’t survive any other way.

She stepped onto the macadam and felt the heat of it warm the soles of her muddy shoes. Despite the earlier rain the highway retained sunny summer heat. She was sweating, fear sweat, even though the air had cooled. She could smell herself, musky sweat crawling all over her body. She didn’t know how she looked. She had on the wig and had straightened it before leaving the woods. But she might have blood on her from Crow and her face was probably scarlet with burns. She had no idea. She just knew she had a mission to perform, and she’d do that. Nothing could stop her.

As the car neared, slowing, she stepped further into the road blocking passage and waved her arms. The car lights were in her eyes, white sapphire suns bearing down out of darkness. The car stopped. She rushed toward it and around to the driver’s side. She had the gun out before she got there and hit the rolled up window with the gun barrel. The driver was a woman, fortyish, her eyes big and round with new fear.

“Open the goddamn door.” Could she shoot this woman? She didn’t think so. Or maybe she could. Yes, she could. If she had to, she’d shoot her.

The woman started moving the car forward and Heddy stepped back, taking aim, ready to put a bullet through the window. The woman watched her and slammed the brakes. The car, a very old red Ford Escort, died.

“Get out of the car,” Heddy shouted. She looked up and down the highway, hoping no one else would come along. “Hurry!”

The woman unlocked her door and stepped out. Heddy marched her at gun point across the ditch to where Crow waited with the others. “Go get in the car, I’ll take care of this,” he said.

The woman was babbling. She had been terrified when the woman pointed a weapon at her, but now that she saw so many strange people, some of them dripping blood or looking wounded, Heddy could see she was wild with panic. Her hands fluttered at her breast as if they would be able to catch reality and bend it back to normal again.

Heddy gestured the family to the car. She got them inside and tried the ignition. It started on the first try, but it backfired and boiled smoke from the exhaust. She put it into gear and heard the clunk, felt the lurch jerk her backward as the transmission dropped into drive.

“What a piece of shit. I had to stop a car that ought to be in a junkyard, for crying out loud!” She turned it around and kept it idling by placing one foot on the brake while pressing on the gas pedal to keep the engine going, waiting for Crow. She thought at first the sound she heard was another backfire, but then she realized the sound had come from the forest where she couldn’t see a thing.

Crow killed the woman. Well, she wasn’t surprised. The woman would have told the cops her car had been stolen; she would have let everyone know what car they were in. Shit happens, that was Heddy’s philosophy. It happens to be the best of us, she thought. Don’t it, though? Life’s a beach and then you drown. What a hoot.

If she wasn’t so exhausted, so wired and sick to her stomach and trembling with an overload of adrenaline, she’d laugh at just how many people were dying tonight. It was a regular slaughter.

#

THE Escort wouldn’t go over fifty miles an hour. At that speed it rumbled and spit coal black smoke from the exhaust pipes and threatened to shake itself to pieces.

“You couldn’t find a better car than this?” Crow asked. He wished now he’d let Heddy stay in the woods and he’d been the one to approach the road to flag down a vehicle.

“It’s not my fault that woman was driving this junk heap.”

There had been headlights behind them for twenty miles now. Another junk heap unable to go very fast, Crow wondered? Or their pals from St. Louis?

“Well, we’re gonna have to do something, Heddy. I think we’ve got company on our ass.”

He saw Heddy glance in the rearview mirror. The car jerked and banged as she tried to push it above fifty. Suddenly she applied the brakes and they all found their heads whip-lashing. She pulled to the side of the road.

“What’re you doing?” Crow asked, glancing back over his shoulder at the car that had been following them.

“We need to settle this right here. I can’t outrun them. Let’s just get out of the car and do it, Crow.” She pushed open the creaking driver’s door and stepped out.

Crow hurried, doing the same. He said, “You take the keys?”

Heddy held up the car keys and shook them.

They both turned to face the oncoming headlights.

“Don’t pull a gun until you know for sure,” Heddy said. She had her hand in the green vinyl shoulder bag.

The car came toward them slowly. When it reached where they stood at the side of the road, it stopped. Crow stiffened. How damn many people had the lab owners sent after them, a whole fucking battalion?

Someone got out on the driver’s side and looked over the roof at them. “Got car trouble?”

He was about a hundred and fifty years old, Crow estimated. He had a white Santa Claus beard and enough wrinkles to rival the surface of the moon. This was not someone tailing them from the wreck, couldn’t be. The tough guys in St. Louis didn’t hire on geezers. The relief that flooded through Crow was like a whoosh of cool wind down a hot canyon wall.

“Nah, we’re okay, Pops.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

“Nope, thanks for stopping.” Crow gave little thought to taking the old man’s car. It was something from the forties, something almost as old as he was. A faded black round-roofed car that looked like a hearse. They’d be no better off hijacking it.

When the old man pulled away, Crow gave Heddy a grin. “We’re getting paranoid.”

“Getting? I’ve already passed paranoid into insane.” She laughed a little, relieved too.

Back in the car with the Escort on the highway again, Crow said, “They check out that Riviera, they’re going to wonder where the owner is.”

“I thought of that.” Heddy looked over at Jay. “But I don’t think we can let them go.”

Crow wondered why. Yeah, they knew where he and Heddy were going, but what did it matter? They’d be out of the country before anyone caught them. Maybe. Maybe not. He wasn’t sure about that, really. For that reason or perhaps reasons of her own Heddy just didn’t want to let the family go. For his part, Crow realized with a shock that he wouldn’t be able to pull a trigger on Carrie or the little girl. He had a thing for Carrie. It’s true she had talked him out of doing anything back in the motel room, but even that made him want her more. She spoke to him in a soft, soothing voice. She appealed to his honor and no one had done that in years. Relinquishing the idea of taking her against her will made him feel cleaner somehow than he’d felt in ages.

Oh, he could do Jay easy, no problem, but kill a kid or a woman he wanted to fuck? Not in this lifetime. So they’d have to let all three of them go.

He hadn’t wanted to bust the woman in the woods, for that matter. He thought about it before he did it. He didn’t listen to her. He’d heard better pleading from guys in Leavenworth. Shit, he’d done better begging himself. Not that it had saved him either. It just seemed sort of sad to murder a woman because she had driven her car down the wrong road at the wrong time. Wasteful. She was old, maybe forty-five, and she was fat as a butter ball and she was, in the end, dead as sin, lying on her stomach in old dead leaves with a hole in her head. Damn shame.

He needed to get cranked. He’d felt pretty secure when they had the brand new Riviera and three hostages for cover if they got caught. But now, riding in this rustbucket, squeezed next to the little girl who had been silent the entire time, he felt like he was two steps away from a prison cell again. If he could crank up, maybe he’d stop worrying about it.

Hell, let Heddy do the worrying. If she happened to stay sober enough.

#

I think Heddy knew, even after she had stopped and found out the car following us wasn’t after her, that they were back there--the people from St. Louis. Daddy told Mama and me that Crow and Heddy must have knocked over a lab house, probably crack, a crack house, or meth, he said, a meth house. That’s what he said, knocked over, but I knew he meant they robbed it. I had seen crack houses on TV on cop shows. People involved in them were all members of the gangs and stuff, real gangsters.

Daddy had whispered to us about this while Heddy was out getting food for us and Crow went to the bathroom. Crow came out and Daddy didn’t say anymore.

Now we had been in a wreck where I got thrown onto the floorboard behind the front seat, bumping my head and scraping my knees on the carpet. And because of Heddy, we’d just walked away. There were a lot of people, but they were all over the wrecked cars and didn’t even notice when we left.

Heddy took us up through the woods and came out on the road a long way in front of where the wreck happened. She made us stay in the woods until she went to the road and waved down a car. When she brought the driver to us, a really scared-looking woman in a flowered red dress who smelled like she’d been eating licorice whips, Heddy made us cross the ditch and get in the car.

It wasn’t anything like my Daddy’s car. It was little and we were all shoulder to shoulder in the back seat. I was practically sitting on Crow’s lap. And the car made lots of noises and stunk pretty bad with the smoke coming out the rear end. You know how I’ve told you places and people sometimes have smells? Well, the old car they stole from that woman smelled of old things, really old, and poor things, like secondhand clothes they sell at garage sales.

Heddy cussed and carried on about it. She got mad when Crow asked her why she took a car that bad.

The woman the car belonged to never came out of the woods. I hope she’s all right. Did anyone find her? Did she get a ride? Well, it was better she stayed in the woods and wasn’t made to go with us because it just got worse and worse with Crow and Heddy. At that time I didn’t think it could get worse, but it did.

After we were on the road a while, not going very fast, Crow took another square from the tinfoil packet in his purse. He was right about me knowing what it was. I’ve never seen it up close or anything, but even in little towns kids do drugs, you know.

Not me. My Daddy would kill me if I ever did something like that. About once a week he told me how bad drugs were and if I ever saw kids doing them I was supposed to tell him. I couldn’t do that, of course. They were just kids and if I told, they’d go to jail. Most of them knew my Daddy was a policeman so they didn’t let me see much anyway.

After Crow put the drug up his nose, he went bonkers. He jiggled next to me like a little monkey. He started talking about crazy stuff, things that didn’t make sense. Something about a guy called “Mod Squad” and about shivs made out of plastic tableware and fires in the bunks and closets where guys did the sex thing--although he used another word for it, one I’m not allowed to say.

He’d start talking about one thing and suddenly be talking about something else. I didn’t want to hear what he was saying or what he was thinking. I stayed away from him, pushing up close to my Mama. I whispered to her, “Mama, can we ever go home?”

She hugged me and kissed me. I saw she was crying so I didn’t ask her anything else. She didn’t know anymore than I did, really, even if she was grown up and smart and a teacher. Maybe I even knew more because I could tell what people thought sometimes. It made me feel so alone. As much as my parents wanted to take care of me and protect me, they couldn’t do a thing about the situation we were in.

Heddy got to the next town and found a motel that was dark and shabby. We never stayed in good places, like Best Westerns and Holiday Inns. We’d look funny going to our rooms the way Heddy and Crow were dressed, like street bums.

When we pulled up in front of the motel door, she had to shake Crow to wake him up. He’d talked himself straight into sleep. When he woke, he was real hateful and sassy, telling Heddy she had no right pushing him around, why didn’t she just let him sleep in the car?

She didn’t even offer to let us take a shower. I told her I was dirty and she just stared at me like I was crazy. I didn’t tell her again. I knew that Crow did stuff without using his brain. He didn’t even think about stuff. But Heddy thought it out and if she ever wanted to shoot me, if she got to thinking I was too much trouble, she’d do it in a pretty nasty, scary way. She’d let me see the gun and maybe feel it against my skin before she shot me.

Once that thought got in my head, I couldn’t get it out. I couldn’t go to sleep the rest of that night because of it. My stomach hurt, thinking about it. And I was hungry; I hadn’t eaten much chicken.

But the worst thing was thinking about Heddy and what she’d do if she ever decided it was time to get rid of me. I must have shivered all night and finally shut my eyes when it was very late and maybe slept a little bit.

The next thing I knew, Heddy was coming through the motel room door and slamming it behind her.

“That goddamn stinking torn-up rattletrap piece of shit won’t start!”

“Hell.” Crow came from the bathroom with a towel around his waist, his gun hanging from his hand. He’d just showered and he had untied Daddy to let him take a bath now. Mama was next and then me. I really needed a shower and I needed some clothes. We’d left our things in the Riviera. I guess we were going to have to put on our dirty clothes again. I’d never done that before, ever.

Heddy stomped around the bed and threw herself down on it so that she bounced and her feet left the floor.

“Now what do we do?”

“Well, we don’t call the Ford service center, that’s for sure,” she said.

Crow laughed until he saw her face. He cleared his throat. “Shit, we’ll just take another car. No big deal.”

“Great. Which one?”

“Huh?”

“Look out the window, Goof. We’re the only people here. There ain’t no cars out there.”

Crow left the bed and pulled up the dusty Venetian blinds. He turned back. “Now what?”

“I guess we’re stuck here. Until someone else comes.”

“That might not be until tonight.”

“So we wait till tonight.”

“What are we going to eat?”

Heddy gave him a withering look. “I think it’s time you go out for the food. I’ve been doing every goddamn thing. I drive the cars, I take the cars, I get the food, I get us out of tight spots like that wreck...”

“All right, all right, I get the message!” Crow turned his back, dropped the towel so his butt showed while he dragged on jeans and a shirt. He found his satchel and stormed out the door, slamming it behind him.

I sure hoped he wouldn’t come back with hotdogs. Did I tell you I hate hotdogs now?

#

HAWKINS remembered the day he decided to call up Jay’s superior to find out where he was. It was one day after Jay’s scheduled session. He knew the family had left for vacation, but they were to return two days before and Jay had arranged to be in Charlotte for therapy the following day. One thing Frank could always depend on with Jay Anderson was his punctuality. He never missed an appointment. He was never even late to one.

“Hey, this is Frank Hawkins down in Charlotte. Could you let me speak to Jay?”

“Jay’s not back yet, sir.” The sheriff’s secretary knew everyone who worked from her office. “You want to talk to the sheriff?”

Frank, surprised to hear Jay hadn’t returned, said yes. When he hung up from talking to the sheriff he sat worrying a pencil stub between his teeth. Jay was two days late from vacation? Without calling?

The next day he got a call from the sheriff. The police in Tarrant County had impounded Jay’s new car down in Oklahoma.

“It’s been in a wreck?”

“That’s what they tell me. A God-almighty bad wreck too. They think it’s totaled out.”

“Did Jay mention he was going to Oklahoma?”

“No, see that’s it. He said they were going over to Missouri and back. That doesn’t include Oklahoma if my geography’s any good.”

“And he hasn’t called?”

“Not only hasn’t he called, but the impound place said the only way they knew who the car belonged to was the owner’s papers in the pocket compartment. No one’s showed up to claim the car since it was hauled away by wreckers.”

Frank’s anxiety deepened. “You checked the hospitals, I guess.”

“Certainly. There’s been no one admitted under the Anderson name.”

“And...you checked the...morgue?”

“No dead Andersons either.”

“How about if I go out there to check it out?” Frank asked.

The sheriff sounded relieved. “I’d sure ‘ppreciate that, Frank. I can’t leave and I don’t have nobody else here I can do without either, not with Jay off work. But somebody’s got to clear up the mystery of a wrecked vehicle and the missing family. If they’re not dead from the wreck, why hasn’t Jay called in? It’s got me worried to death.”

“Consider it done.”

Frank got permission to make the flight and spend the days necessary to find the missing Anderson family. He rented a car and drove directly to the police impound lot.

“Mind if I snoop around the car?” He asked.

They gave him freedom to do whatever he wanted. Inside the wrecked car he found suitcases in the trunk with changes of clothes and toiletries for Jay, his wife, and daughter. Inside the car, he searched around and could find nothing that might give him a clue to their whereabouts.

He did find blood on the rear left passenger door. He called in forensics and the fingerprint team. Just the suggestion of foul play combined with the mystery of the missing family warranted further investigation.

Frank took a room in the town where the car was being held in impound. The morning after he’d called for an investigation, he received a phone call from a state lab.

“Frank Hawkins?”

“That’s me. What did you find?”

“Something I know you--and the Feds--will be interested in.”

“Yes?” Get on with it, he thought.

“The blood type matches the fingerprints lifted in the car for an escaped convict from Leavenworth, one Craig Walker. He busted out less than a week ago. The bulletins on him suggest he’s traveling with a girlfriend with a sheet for felonies an arm long. She lived in St. Louis, Missouri until Craig broke out. They think she might have helped him escape the area, provided the car. They can tell you more, but that car of hers?”

“Yeah?”

“It was found abandoned in woods not far from some tourist caverns in Missouri. This Craig character’s been in other wheels since then.”

Frank sat on the side of the motel bed and wondered what he could do besides alert the FBI an escaped convict had definitely crossed state lines and doubtless had a cop’s family as hostage.

After making the necessary phone calls, he took the next flight for Kansas. He was heading for Leavenworth.

#

CROW found a music channel on the television and turned the volume full blast. He felt so antsy that he couldn’t be still. When Heddy told him to turn it down, he ignored her. Fuck her. Fuck this shit. Hadn’t he been the one to go for food? Hadn’t she been the one to complain about how much she hated Mexican? Hadn’t he done everything she’d told him for hours? Hadn’t she not bothered, once, to say thank you? You’d think she’d show a little gratitude. Didn’t she know how hard it was to walk down the streets out there while wondering if people were behind their shades and curtains, dialing the cops on him?

Since hitting the outside mere days ago he had had sex a few times, two Miller Lites, one T-bone steak (the first day he and Heddy skipped). It wasn’t enough of the good life for someone who had been locked up in the slammer for four years, taking orders, taking shit. He felt like belting someone for all the years he had lost.

Those four years hadn’t been the first time they’d stolen away his freedom. He’d been in and out of various institutions since he hit the streets at the age of ten goddamn years old--Emily’s age. Life sucked. Life was about as much fun as having a pipe organ blow the strains of the Star-Spangled Banner up your ass.

He began jiggling around and then throwing himself into the heavy metal rock coming from the band gyrating on the television. He threw his head front and back, flailed his arms, and bounced on the balls of his feet. If this music didn’t cheer him up, he didn’t know what he’d do, but it would be something bad.

“What’s wrong with you, Crow, you sick?” Heddy yelled. “You got to play it that loud?”

He ignored her. Ignore, ignore, I don’t know you, you bitch, he thought fiercely. I don’t know no one. I don’t need no one. I’m five seconds away from leaving this shithole with you in it.

To his surprise, Heddy came over to where he was moving like a madman and she began to dance too. She threw off the ugly curly wig and began flipping her head back and forth so that her long hair, still damp from a shower, came over her face and back again.

“Awwwright!” He screamed. “Gyrate, baby!”

Someone banged on the door. Crow yelled, “Go fuck yourself!”

Heddy stopped abruptly and turned down the TV. “Who’s there?” She asked.

“Could y’all turn that noise down a little? You can hear it all the way out to the road.”

Heddy must have recognized the dopey-looking motel clerk’s voice. “You heard the man. FUCK OFF!”

She whipped the volume up again and danced until they were both wet with sweat. Crow, incredibly aroused and not at all depressed anymore, got Heddy around the waist and threw her onto the empty second bed.

“Take out the kid.”

Crow froze, for a moment thinking Heddy was telling him to kill the kid. Then he realized she meant “take the kid to the bathroom so we can fuck.” He laughed wildly and bounded off the bed. He untied Emily’s ankles and led her to the bathroom. She asked if she could sit on the toilet lid. He shrugged and let her, then closed the door. He whooped like crazy, sailed over the end of the bed where Jay and Carrie lay on their backs, bound and wordless, and landed on top of Heddy. She grunted, rolled him to the side and started working the zipper of his jeans.

He felt like a hundred million. In ones! Heddy always did that for him.

The music channel changed programs and a soft-voiced girl sang about love, lost and regained. Perfect music for the scorched souls of a pair of lovers who needed a break, Crow thought, pushing into Heddy. Just perfect, man, this warm spot, this warm spot that cured the world’s woes.

#

THE hours spent in the motel stranded were the most normal any of us had seen. We took showers and even though we didn’t have our suitcases any longer so we had no clean clothes, it was great to be under the shower head, washing out the dirt of two days on the road.

I always liked taking a bath. A shower, really. Mama was always getting onto me for standing under the warm water for over an hour, just dreaming. I couldn’t take an hour bath in the motel, but just the same I felt a whole lot better afterwards.

Then Crow brought us back some Mexican food. Tacos and burritos and chili con questo. I even ate my guacamole salad because it was green and it tasted so fresh. I don’t think anyone else ate the guacamole.

After we ate, Mama did the craziest thing. We were all untied so we could eat and close to the time we were all about finished, Mama stood up from the bed with her paper plate and walked toward the door. We all thought she was taking the plate to the trash can standing there, next to the TV, but she kept going, got her hand on the door knob, and just...sort of walked out.

She didn’t even close the door all the way behind her. She just walked out!

Heddy was up and out the door after her before Crow even got his face out of his food long enough to notice she was gone.

I called, “Mama!”

Daddy stood up and dropped his paper plate and plastic fork, he was so shocked.

Heddy came back in, leading Mama by the arm, pinching her arm I think because Mama was making a face like it hurt. Then I remembered that was the arm she’d hurt in the wreck.

I said, “You’re hurting my Mama. Let her go.”

Heddy let her go, but after she’d slammed the door shut and locked it, putting on the safety chain, she turned around and gave me a look like, You watch it, little girl.

“Just what the hell did you think you were doing?” Heddy asked Mama.

Crow had stopped eating finally and he said, “She must be loco. From the food, huh?”

Heddy didn’t like joking when she was mad. “You think you can just walk out of here? Is that what you think?”

Mama had not said a word and she said nothing now. Daddy asked, “Are you all right?”

She nodded, but she wouldn’t look at him.

I think maybe Mama got to a point, after all the stuff that’d happened, where she cracked a little--like an egg you’re boiling. You leave it on the burner too long and the water burns out and then the egg cracks and sticks to the pan. She hadn’t put up much protest through this whole thing, but maybe it was hurting her worse than either Daddy or me. Mama’d been through a lot and I didn’t believe she was even thinking when she went through the door.

I could smell her unhappiness and the thought she had that there was no hope. It smelled like an old sofa pillow that everyone punches and puts beneath their heads and backs. Getting worn out, getting so old it needs to be thrown out.

Heddy and Crow didn’t bother her anymore because maybe they knew she was doing harmless stuff. She wasn’t threatening them. She was just a little lost, maybe even a little crazy.

I sat next to her on the bed and held her hand. She said, “I love you, Emily.”

I said, “I love you too, Mama.”

Crow said, “Oh give me a break with this love shit.”

He was tying Daddy’s hands again now that we were through eating.

The rest of the day was spent trying not to get on one another’s nerves. The room was small, shabby, dark enough we had to keep the lamps on. Crow asked Daddy about the town where we live in North Carolina. At first Daddy didn’t want to talk to him, but Heddy started asking him questions too and soon he was having a talk with them. Not like they were old friends, not like that, but he stopped sounding so angry after a little while.

“I’ve been a cop since I was twenty,” he said.

“So, hey, what’s it like busting the bad guys?” Heddy asked.

Daddy gave her a close look to see if she was baiting him. He said, “I just do my job.”

“You think Crow ought to have wound up in Leavenworth for self-defense?”

Daddy laughed a little.

“What’s so funny? She asked you a question.” Crow had his back up, scowling like a bald-headed monkey waiting for a researcher to come with the needle.

“They all call it self-defense. What’d you do again, stab a guy in the stomach with a pool cue?”

“He pulled a knife on me first, said I was cheating.”

“Were you?”

“What the hell difference it make, man? He had no call to pull the knife.”

“I’m no judge,” Daddy said, deliberately sidestepping the question.

“Well, you don’t know nothing. You ever been broke? No place to stay the night?”

“I’m just about always broke.”

“Right!” Crow barked out his disbelief. “You drive a Riviera and you’re always broke. Right.”

“After I make the payment, yeah, I am.”

“It ain’t the same, man. You don’t know what it’s like needing a meal. A crust of bread! You’d steal too if you were hungry.”

“I’m sure I would. That why you took the money from the lab house? You were hungry?”

Crow narrowed his eyes. “What makes you so smart? How come you don’t think I’ll just pistol whip you to death one of these times you smart off like that?”

“You practically rape my wife, you terrify my daughter, you steal my car, you use me, and I’m going to be afraid of you? What else do I have to look forward to in the catalogue of terror tactics you have up your sleeve? After a while a person gets used to the way things stand, he gets immune. Or didn’t you discover that yourself while in prison?”

“What’s that supposed to mean? What’re you getting at, man?”

“Don’t talk to him, Crow.” Heddy had drifted away from the two men and sat down in the desk chair. She’d been drinking from her bottle of whiskey, staring at the wall as if she could see a funny movie there. Half her mouth, the half that worked, smiled like she was having a great dream.

Mama lay down after a while and I still sat near, holding her hand. I’d done that before. When Daddy was mad at her she often took to the bed and I sat with her, hoping she’d say something, anything, so I’d know she was going to be all right.

Just before dark Crow started acting weird, turning up some music on the TV real loud and dancing around like nobody I’ve ever seen dance. Then Heddy started dancing with him and, afterward, they got in the bed together. I had to sit in the bathroom and Crow let me sit on the toilet lid to wait. It was more comfortable than sitting on the floor. Not as cold, either.

I guess it’s fair to say I don’t like staying in bathrooms longer than I have to. Not since being around those two.

#

NO one stopped to take a room where we were staying. It wasn’t exactly an inviting kind of stopover place. Finally, too anxious to stay off the road any longer, Heddy said we’d try to get the car started again. After Crow fiddled with something under the hood, it started. He hee-hawed like a madman.

We were on our way again. It looked like Heddy would drive into the night so she could get farther south.

The worn out Ford Escort got us into the state of Texas before it died the next morning, shuddering and screaming like some kind of cat being skinned alive. Heddy pulled it over to the side of the road and we all just sat in the car, waiting.

It was the hottest time of day and we were all tired out, sleeping just a little through the night. The Escort rocked on its tires as cars whooshed past it. We were on Highway 83 South somewhere outside the town of Paducah, Texas in the upper panhandle where a big blue sky hung overhead, cloudless, and heat shimmered in violet waves off the pavement.

I looked at the back of Heddy’s head and then at the back of my daddy’s head. I looked over at Crow. He sat quietly with his hands in his lap, staring at the back of Heddy’s head too.

Were we just going to sit there with sweat crawling down our backs, alongside the road all day, I wondered?

The windows were down and the sounds of the passing cars filled our ears. Whoosh. Whoosh. I studied the drifts of wildflowers growing in the weeds that covered the ditch next to the road--Indian Paintbrush, bluebonnets, and wild sunflowers nodding on tall stems that swayed every time a car passed.

After a long while Heddy moved. She leaned forward in the seat and tried the ignition. The starter on the car whined. She kept trying. Finally the car caught life and suddenly Crow let out a whoop that made me jump.

“Goddamn, I thought we were done for this time!”

Heddy pumped the gas to keep the car going, but it coughed smoke and still shuddered like it was sick. She said, “It might get us to the next town. That’s all it’s got to do.”

She put on her turn signal and watched for a break in the traffic on the inside lane before pulling out slowly. Cars had to go around us. We couldn’t have been traveling faster than thirty miles an hour all the way to the next little place that was called Guthrie, Texas. The car lurched and growled and smoked. I caught myself wishing it would make it. I didn’t know what Heddy might do if it broke down there on the highway where a cop car might stop to check on us.

Heddy pulled the Escort into the parking lot of a PiggyWiggly store and let the old car finally die.

“Now what?” Crow asked.

“We need another set of wheels.”

“Well, I know that.”

“Then why’d you ask?” Heddy looked over her shoulder at him as if he were nuts.

“I’m going in the store for some food.” Crow climbed out of the car and stretched. “I ain’t sitting in this baking oven another second.”

“I have to go to the bathroom,” I said. “Heddy? Can I?”

“Not yet.” She was staring out the windshield, studying the parking lot.

“But I have to go to the...”

“Shut up!”

A blue van with silver stripes pulled into the entrance and moved past us slowly like a big ship gliding past, blocking the sky.

“That’s what we’re taking,” Heddy said, getting out of the car. “Come on, get out and walk in front of me.”

We all got out of the car. Daddy said, “You’re going to take that van? In broad daylight?”

“Watch me,” she said, pushing him across the lot toward the van. “You ought to have a little more confidence. I could teach you how to be a pretty good car thief if you’d pay attention.”

“I don’t think car theft is in my stars,” Daddy said.

It was tall and blue and square, like a bus, with silver stripes down the center of the sides. By the time it was parked, Heddy had us at the side door that faced away from the store. Her gun was out and in her hand. The door opened and out stepped a young man wearing suspenders over a pinstriped shirt with a pair of blue slacks. He looked startled to find so many people that near to his vehicle.

“Hello,” Heddy said. “Mind if we see what this baby looks like inside?”

She let the man see the gun and he moved out of the way, his hands going up a little. “Put your hands down, stupid.” Heddy leaned over the driver’s seat and looked around. “How’s the gas mileage on a thing like this?”

The man blinked. “Uh, it’s not bad,” he said. When Heddy waited, staring at him he added, “Maybe eighteen to a gallon, open road.”

“Good,” Heddy said. “Give me the keys and get in the back with the others.”

I could see Crow coming across the lot through the window of the van. He was headed for the Escort. Heddy saw him too. She said, “Open that window.” The man did as he was told and Heddy yelled out, “Crow! In here!”

Crow halted and stared incredulously at the new shiny van, then he grinned like a crazed overheated dog that’s found a patch of shade. He ambled over to the vehicle, circled it, opened the door and came inside. He had a bag of groceries in his arms. “Hey, now this is using your noggin. What a set-up. Plenty of room for everyone.” He twisted in the front seat and admired the double row of seats we sat on and the sofa in the very back.

Not far outside of Guthrie, Heddy took a right turn on a little used farm road and drove down it until she saw an opening on the site where a house used to stand. Wild orange and black speckled irises broke over the top of tall grass, like colorful birds rising into the air. She pulled into the overgrown yard and parked the van, but left it idling.

She nodded her head at Crow. He said, “Come on, man, this is your getting off place. We’ll take real good care of your rig for you.”

The man heaved a sigh of relief as he crawled from the seat next to us. He had tried to find out what his abductors were doing, why they’d brought him along, but couldn’t get any information. He got out of the van and was almost smiling at the thought of being away from us. Crow followed him out.

I put my hands over my ears and then over my eyes. I felt Mama put her arm around my shoulder. We all knew what was going to happen and there was nothing we could do about it.

There were two shots, one after the other. Daddy said, “He’s a damn man-eating shark. The man would kill anything.”

“Yeah, I know,” Heddy said. “Ain’t we lucky?”

“You’re closing the door on your own cellblock, Heddy.”

Heddy sneered at him with her half-working mouth and said, “That’s the by God truth and don’t forget it. As long as it’s my cell block and I’m the one closing the door, it’s not your goddamn business.” Suddenly she reached out and stroked Daddy’s cheek. He flinched, as if she were about to hit him, but when she just stroked, he seemed to loosen, and then he smiled at her in a soft way I’d seen him smile at Mama before.

I looked at Mama, but she wouldn’t look back. She had seen it, what passed between Heddy and Daddy, but she wasn’t going to let me know what she thought.

Crow was back inside, telling Daddy to get out and get in the front. They switched places. Heddy turned the van around in the tall green swaying grass, crushing the orange irises beneath the wheels. She headed to the highway again.

Texas lay before us like a big, flat, desert place shimmering beneath the red sun. It was the first time that I thought maybe we weren’t going to get out of this alive. Not any of us.

#

HEDDY was a good driver, better than Crow could ever be, he realized, watching how she maneuvered the extra-long van down the highway. While she drove, he inspected the place. It was luxurious, almost a home on wheels. There was a color TV inset at the roofline just behind the front bucket seats. There were headphones on each side of the wide seats that he assumed worked off the stereo system. There were even recessed cup holders for drinks on each side of the bench seat.

He switched on the TV with the remote control, but the station kept fading out so that he turned it off again.

“Try the radio,” he told Heddy and music spilled from invisible speakers in the doors and ceiling.

“This is one luxury vehicle,” he said, taking an apple from the bag of groceries he’d bought. “Won’t nobody suspect we’re in something like this.”

“We’ll ditch it when we get to the border,” Heddy said. “Maybe we’ll walk across and buy something to drive in Mexico.”

Crow crunched down on the apple and grinned over at the silent family. “This beats your Riviera all to shit,” he said around the mouth full of apple flesh.

“Yeah, but it won’t outrun a patrol car.” Jay gave him a knowing glance.

“It won’t have to. There’s not one after us. So why don’t you give it a rest?”

Jay shrugged.

Emily said, “I need to go to the bathroom.”

“I’ll stop somewhere in a little while,” Heddy said.

“Even you couldn’t afford something like this,” Crow said to Jay. “Come to think of it, the guy we left back in those weeds couldn’t afford it for very long.”

“It cost him his life, didn’t it?” Jay asked. “You’re just a stone killer, aren’t you? That makes you a big man, doesn’t it? With that gun, you’re the Pope and the President all rolled up in one little package, you rule the world.”

“You got that right, motherfucker.” Crow tossed the core of the apple on the floorboard and glared at Jay.

“Shut up, Jay,” Heddy called from the driver’s seat.

“And what if I don’t? Going to kill me? Why don’t you go ahead and get it the hell over with?”

Carrie said, “Please, Jay, don’t.”

“We’re not going down into Mexico with you, I know that. You’re either going to let us go or kill us all. Why not get it done now?”

“You got your pig face showing,” Crow said. “And I’ll smash it in for you if you keep it up.”

“I’ll pull this bastard over right here!” Heddy screamed, rooting everyone for a moment as she applied the brakes enough to cause Jay to grab hold of the dash.

“Daddy?”

Jay turned enough to see his daughter. It was as if she carried his sanity on her shoulders and when he saw her, it was returned to him. He slumped, settling into the bucket seat, his head hanging.

Suddenly Carrie squared her shoulders and began to talk in a firm voice. “Yes,” she said, “my husband beats me and I have put up with it.”

Jay swiveled his head to stare at her. He couldn’t have looked more surprised if his wife had just said he drank camel piss and ate babies for lunch. Emily scooted close to her side and held onto her hand for support. The van picked up speed again, Heddy ignoring them once more.

“Go on,” Crow said, “tell the truth, woman.”

Carrie took a deep breath, but she would not look at her husband. She stared at her hands. “I didn’t know he was that way when I married him. I’d known him in high school when he was the star quarterback and all the girls were crazy about him. It was all very romantic, the way he cared only for me. He bought me flowers, gave me his ring. It seemed right at the time when he got angry if any other boy asked me out. It’s how all the boys acted, jealous and protective.

“But that first year of marriage after I’d finished getting my teacher’s certificate and he hit me---I should have left him then. But I was...I was pregnant.” She raised her head and looked sadly at Emily. “I didn’t want to leave him. I thought it would get better.”

“You’ve said enough,” Jay said.

“She hasn’t even fucking started,” Crow said. “Go on, Carrie.”

“I know now that I let him maim my spirit. He broke me as surely as someone breaks a wild horse. I’m guilty of letting that happen, of staying when I didn’t have the strength to leave, of forcing my only child to watch the death of a marriage and the slow dying of the small love that was once between her parents.”

“Oh mama...”

Carrie patted her daughter’s hand before continuing. “When the two of you found us, I’d determined to leave him. When we returned from our vacation, Emily and I were going away.”

“It’s none of their business,” Jay said.

“Yes, it is. Yes, it’s their business now because we’re their business, Jay. They have the power to kill us or let us go. They need to know how much suffering we’ve already done when they make that kind of decision.”

“Confession’s good for the soul.” Crow grinned in a lopsided way at Jay. “Let her tell it.”

“I’ve heard it all before,” Heddy said from the front. “Get out the violins.”

Carrie burst into tears. She let the tears spill down her face without wiping them away. “I know it’s a stupid life. It’s the same life a million other women are living or have lived and I let myself become just another stupid statistic, a battered woman, a victim...a nobody. It’s my fault, too. I let it happen, I stayed too long, I took it.”

“It’s not true, Mama.” Emily squeezed her mother’s hand and pushed her head onto her shoulder. “You stayed for me.”

“But if you kill him, that doesn’t clean the slate.” Carrie turned her face to Crow. She looked past her husband to the violent and cruel man who had defended her once in the hotel room, the man who listened to her and was talked out of the idea of rape. “If you kill him, I don’t get to leave him, do I? I don’t get to fix all the wrong. I don’t get to prove to my daughter that her mother is strong and can make a difference in her life.”

Crow shrugged. “I don’t know about all that.” He seemed to think it over, watching her.

“Why don’t you let us go now?” Carrie asked in a soft, pleading voice. “Let us finish our lives, let me have the chance to do the right thing.”

“You ever leave me, I’ll kill you.”

Crow’s eyes flicked from Carrie to Jay, then darkened. “I think he means it.”

“Then he’ll just have to kill me.”

“That ain’t gonna happen,” Crow said. He pointed at Jay. “You just signed your death warrant, buddy. This woman needs you like she needs terminal cancer.”

Jay stared out the side window.

Carrie wiped her face clear. She said, “You still won’t let us go, will you?”

“No.”

“You’re going to kill us then?”

Crow didn’t answer. The voice that answered came from the driver’s seat when Heddy said, “He might not, but you can count on me.”

Emily started to cry, her shoulders heaving. “It’s all right,” Carrie said. “Don’t cry, baby, it’s going to be all right no matter what happens.”

#

YOU might think I shouldn’t love my father for what he’s done to my mother. The funny thing is I can love part of him and hate the other part. The part that is my father who rode me on his shoulders at the Thanksgiving Parade, the part that took me into Clarissa’s Toy Shop downtown and bought me the prettiest porcelain doll they had for sale, the part that beamed over my report card grades--that’s the part I love.

People, even parents, don’t come all in a box with a bow tied around it, like a present--pretty and new and something you always wanted. They’re made up of pieces and bits, some of it smooth like jewels shining and some of it jagged glass that can cut your heart out. You have to love what you can and stay away from the rest.

The one thing I couldn’t forgive him for is when he said he’d kill Mama if she tried to leave him.

The one thing that surprised me about my mama was how she didn’t care. She said she’d go anyway. For the first time in our lives she was ready to stand up to him even if he threatened to take her life for it.

Maybe it was all these days under the strain and the fear with Heddy and Crow. It was also probably because she saw how Heddy touched Daddy and how he responded to her. That one sudden touch and the smile from it caused my mother to break out and say what she had to say, to face what she had to face. She had loved my father once and now she had to get away from him. She said it was to prove to me she could do it, but the truth was it was something she had to do to save herself.

When Heddy told us she would be the one to kill us, I knew it was the truth too. Heddy didn’t say anything she didn’t mean. I could tell by watching Crow as he listened to my mama that he would never hurt her in any way. He was a killer, he’d already killed people in front of us, but my mother had found one of those jeweled parts in him and he’d never find his dead broken glass soul to cut her out of his life.

It seemed to me then that things were getting really complicated. Over three days and two nights Heddy and my daddy were interested in one another. And Crow was interested in my mother, though she was older than he was. It made me dizzy to think of it. It made me nervous.

Even though I knew now that Crow wouldn’t want to hurt Mama, Heddy so far had not shown me any part of her that wasn’t broken. It was like she was a shattered mirror and every piece of it had a crack from top to bottom, from side to side. If anyone could murder us, she could, and it wouldn’t bother her a bit. But would Crow let her do that after what I saw in his eyes for my mother? Where would his loyalty lie in the end? He always did what Heddy said, but when it came to putting a bullet in me or my mother, would Crow let that happen?

I didn’t know which one of them would win out in that contest. Heddy was the strongest, but maybe Crow hadn’t been tested properly yet.

It was odd to hope that this man, this killer, would be the one to save us. But it was all we had.

The new van they’d stolen rolled down the highway across Texas. Outside the windows lay desert land, cacti, and little dusty towns that dozed like old shaggy cats lying spread out in the sun.

Daddy stayed completely still in his seat staring out the window, saying nothing. Crow watched everyone carefully. He made my skin crawl the way he watched us.

I daydreamed a little, remembering our house, the sidewalk in front of it, the street with the trees growing down each side shading the walk. I played there. It was where I learned to ride a bike and to skate. I had friends when I was little. We played games in the front yard and built Kool-Aid stands to sell cups of lemonade on summer days. But when I got older, around nine, I started to realize my friends wouldn’t like it inside my house where there was so much silence and unhappiness. If you walked into our house from outside, you’d feel a chill. It wasn’t natural in our house. It was like a freezer and we were all frozen in our places.

I stopped inviting friends over and they stopped inviting me to their houses until finally I had no friends left at all. It was better that way, just the three of us in the house alone, keeping the secrets.

I used to sit in my room and stare out the front window at the street thinking what I would be when I grew up and I could get away from my parents and the sadness they shared. I would be good, mostly. I would never be mean to another single person, never make anyone cry, never raise my hand to another. It’s the lesson I’d learned and maybe the only one. It got to the point that I couldn’t even harm an insect, couldn’t swat at a fly on my arm or mash a big black ant if it crawled up my leg.

The horror of what I’d seen Crow and Heddy do was a hundred times worse than what my father did when he raised his hand to my mother, but in some ways not really any worse. They killed quickly, taking life in a flash. Daddy had been killing Mama slowly all of my life and, longer, years of cutting away her love until she was half dead before she could manage to say she’d take it no more.

I’d sit on her bed and place a wet folded washcloth over her black eyes and ask her to talk to me, but she couldn’t. She was too dead inside to tell me she was going to recover. Yet by the morning, she’d rise, wash her face, apply the thick pancake make-up and the tinted glasses, and she would go to school with me where she taught and I attended my classes. She’d do what she had to do, I guess, when she had to do it.

No one ever questioned us. Not me or Mama. Daddy was on the town’s police force, what could they say? Maybe they were afraid he’d arrest them. For whatever reason the principal, Mr. Haddway, never called me in and he never asked Mama if she was going to be all right, if she needed help, if he could be of assistance.

It was as if only the kids were the honest ones. They whispered about the black eyes and bruises. They kept away from me so that I ate alone in the cafeteria and was never picked for any side in the games during gym.

I always thought that was for the best because I couldn’t tell them why things were this way or how they would ever end. I never wanted to talk about it. Everyone else had a best friend. I didn’t want any best friends because you had to tell them everything and I couldn’t, just couldn’t.

Toward evening the first day we were in the stolen van Crow started talking after he had some of the drug in his purse. He swiveled toward us and said:“I’ve got a whole lot of money here.” He patted his leather bag. Patted it, patted it like a puppy.

Heddy heard him and warned, “Crow...”

He flipped his hand at her as if to say go away, you bother me, then continued. “I haven’t counted it, but it’s a lot of money, more money than your ole man’s ever made in his entire life. What do you think of that?”

Mama said, “It might get you killed.”

Crow laughed. “Likely as not, unless we get across that border before they catch up with us.” He turned and looked out the square back windows. “I don’t know who’s back there. They might be back there, all right.”

“Why don’t you shut up, Crow? Damn. Do not. Do you hear me? Do not get paranoid on me.”

Again he ignored Heddy’s command. “With this kinda money, I can buy a castle in Mexico. One on a hilltop by the ocean, maybe, and hire me a bunch of Mexicans to wait on me hand and foot. We could all go on down there and live like kings...except for him.” He pointed a bony finger at the back of daddy’s head.

Mama just blinked hard and looked sad. Outside dark fell and the headlights of oncoming cars tracked against the tinted glass like wild eyes striking the curved glass and sliding off into darkness. I think Mama knew like I did that Heddy wouldn’t let him kill my daddy and not us. She’d never let us live in a castle on the beach with Crow. It was all a pipe dream, a fairy story. Only we were all Little Red Riding Hood and Heddy was the wolf. The Big Bad Wolf.

#

MAYBE it was because Carrie finally said and did what his own mother never had the guts to say or do that Crow came to have his feelings for her. Her determination combined with her fragile demeanor and frail looks, made her heroic in his eyes. In his whole life he’d never held up anyone as a hero. Through the juvenile halls and foster care system he’d only run into shits, real shits. People out to use, abuse, and confuse him. Old story, a really depressingly familiar old story, one he knew wasn’t much different from a million other stories he’d heard while in the joint.

His own mother, for not standing up for herself against his two-fisted shit of a father, had paid the ultimate price. The brain damage they discovered in her last hospitalization left her without her own name, much less her son’s. She was put into a place where she never came out again, dying senseless and alone.

Crow never went to see her, even after he was on the street and free. He didn’t want to look again on her empty eyes and watch the slobber dribble down her chin. If he had to see that again, he’d go up like dynamite and kill every motherfucker in sight.

It’s what made him hate Jay with a passion you don’t generally hold for a stranger. It became more and more clear to him that he might be Carrie’s savior by being Jay’s executioner. She might never forgive him for it, and the kid would never forget her father had been murdered at his hands, but, nevertheless, he would have put one son of a bitch out of this world who needed it and there was something to be said for that. The problem with the plan was that something was cooking in Heddy’s brain about the guy. He knew when she liked a guy and she liked this one. She took more shit off him than she should have; she wouldn’t let him go. Could it be that she was stuck on him the way he was getting stuck on Carrie? It was like he and Heddy were tripping over themselves to find new bed partners. Straight ones. Square ones.

It was turning into a hell of a mess, so tangled he couldn’t get it undone.

Heddy pulled the van into the deserted gravel parking lot of a country stockyard outside the city limits of Abilene, Texas. The sun had been down for a couple of hours and the wind-washed town of Abilene blinked with oil field lights to the north of them.

Crow could smell the creosote-soaked timbers and the rotten-egg stink of oil derricks. He could hear in the background the steady thump-thump of the drilling rigs pumping black gold from the bowels of the earth.

“I wonder why anyone lives way the hell out here,” he said. It gave him the heebie-jeebies. He shivered all over with a chill.

Heddy asked, “What did you buy at the store?” He showed her the lunch meat and bread and cheese. She told Carrie, “Make sandwiches.”

Crow didn’t think Heddy was acting right, not like herself, but he wasn’t sure what was wrong. She left the driver’s seat and told him to get in the back, let her sit down. He did as she said, bouncing a little on the sofa in the back. He watched as she turned on the TV with the remote and scanned both channels that came in clear enough to see before settling on “Jeopardy.” She hadn’t looked him in the eye once.

“What burr got up your ass?” He asked.

“I’ve been watching you in the mirror,” she said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’ve seen how you look at her.”

Crow glanced over at Carrie making the sandwiches. The little girl was helping her. Both of them were assiduously ignoring the conversation. In the front seat Jay still sat unmoving and silent. At least he knew his place--which was outside the pale.

“What’s your point, Heddy?” He never figured her for jealousy. Hadn’t she screwed Jay? Right in front of him? And did he get his britches in a bunch over it? Hell no! There wasn’t any room between them for being jealous. It was an emotion neither of them had kept around for very long. He no more owned a piece of Heddy than he could own the moons of Jupiter.

“I say we dump ‘em here. When we take off in the morning, we go alone.”

Crow hawked out a laugh. “Yeah, and before we hit the border, we have a thousand cop cars surrounding this boat. That makes perfect sense, Heddy. We’ve come this far...”

“You’re not taking her with us!” Heddy was off the bench seat, turning, and throwing the remote control at his face. He ducked in time before it struck him, his mouth hanging open at her sudden vehemence.

“Hey, take it easy...”

“We should have dumped them in the beginning. We never should have brought them along!”

“Well, it’s a little late for that. And it was your fucking idea, remember?”

“It’s not too late now. I don’t want them with us anymore.”

“And what if I do?”

Heddy grabbed her green vinyl bag from the floor next to the driver’s seat and flung herself at the handle of the sliding side door. She went out, slamming it behind her. The van rocked.

Crow twisted on the sofa to watch her through the window. She stomped away toward the corrals of the stockyard. She climbed the board fence and sat on top, staring out across the trodden ground to the big hulking warehouse where trucks brought in livestock when there was a public sale.

Crow muttered, watching her, “Crazy bitch.”

“Do what she says,” Carrie said.

Crow said, “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? We put you all out here and you flag down the next patrolman to point out we’re traveling in this fancy van on our way to Mexico.”

She shook her head. “We don’t have to tell anyone anything.”

“And what about him? You think he’ll keep quiet?”

Carrie looked away and took more bread from the package. “You could tie him up. You could...you could even knock him out.” After she’d said it, she seemed shocked at herself.

“Oh, that’s real nice, Carrie,” Jay said from the front. “I want to thank you for that.”

Crow looked outside again, wondering if Heddy would go for it, if maybe that wouldn’t be the wisest move, and saw a car turning into the stockyard.

“It’s a cop,” he said, hurriedly shuffling through his leather bag for his gun.

“I hope he blows your eyes out,” Jay said.

Crow rose, went to the door and stood hunched over before it, watching through the window there. The car drove close to the van and stopped. A cop in full uniform got out, hitching his pants up by his belt. He looked over the van from front to back before approaching the door. Crow said quietly, “You say anything, I kill the bastard.”

Deeper night darkness had swept in even as Crow had been talking to Carrie so that now he couldn’t even see the fence of the stockyard where Heddy had gone to perch. He felt sweat break out under his arms and the smile plastered on his lips felt like a smear of glue across the lower half of his face. He took one step down and reached out to open the sliding door just before the cop went up to the passenger’s seat to talk to Jay.

The door slid open noisily. He stood looking down at a young man with green smiling eyes.

“Howdy, folks. Thought I’d stop to see if you’re having any trouble. This is private property and I’m afraid you can’t stay here.” He peered past Crow’s body to the woman and child making sandwiches.

Crow had his gun behind him. He said, “I’m sorry, officer, we didn’t mean to break any laws. Our engine was running hot so we just pulled over for a little while. We’ll be on our way in a few minutes.”

“Would you mind stepping out so we can talk, sir?” The cop asked. “Bring along registration and your insurance card, if you don’t mind.” He was still smiling, being sociable, but behind his friendly words camped pure steel. If everything was as it seemed, it was going to be all right. If it was hinky, they were going to be in trouble--that’s what his voice promised.

Crow saw only the flicker of a shadow behind the policeman before the flash and the blast caught the intruder in the back. The cop stood one moment facing Crow, shock entering his smiling eyes, before he crumpled forward, his head hitting and clanging off the chrome running board before striking the ground.

Heddy stood silhouetted from the light spilling out the door, the gun dangling at her side. She said, “We have to get out of here.”

“Christ, Heddy, you could have waited a minute, I think he believed me.”

“Oh, fuck, just get back inside and get outta my way.” She crawled up the steps and brushed past him to the driver’s seat to start the van.

Crow glanced once more at the body lying on the ground before closing the door and locking it against the night. “I wish it wasn’t so far across Texas,” he said to no one in particular. “Mexico seems two million miles away.”

#

BY the time Heddy stopped at a service station for gas and let me go to the bathroom, I thought I’d bust. She came into the bathroom before I was finished, and stood in front of the sink mirror, drinking whiskey. She actually growled at me when I came out of the toilet so I didn’t even try to wash my hands. I just wanted out of the room with her before she decided to use her gun on me.

Have you ever seen anyone stare at you like you’re a nasty bug? That’s how Heddy looked at me all the time. Like she wanted to crush me and walk on.

“Go straight to the van,” she said, giving me that Wish I Could Stomp You Dead look.

I shut the door to the bathroom and heard her lock it. For some reason I stood there a minute, listening. That’s when I heard her thoughts so loud they were like cymbals crashing. I put my hands over my ears, to block it out, but that didn’t help. I started backing away from the door, horrified.

Heddy didn’t have thoughts like other people. She didn’t even have thoughts like Crow did when he was messed up on dope. I can’t even tell you what exactly the thoughts were, they were too mixed up and crazy, but if thoughts were colors, hers would have been blood red. Like the fury of a whirlwind coming down out of the sky with chariots on fire in them. Like Satan riding a giant horse down over a city and knocking apart all the buildings like they were stacked dominoes.

She hated herself so much that the hate spilled over onto everything. Onto me, Crow, her life and everything in it. I’d never known anyone who hated that much. Or anyone who scared me more.

I didn’t even know what I was doing. I started running away from the locked bathroom door just to get away from her. Before I knew what I’d done, I was across the service station parking area and then across the broken pavement of an alley and then I was in the middle of someone’s yard yelling, calling, crying, begging for help, hoping someone, anyone, would rescue me.

I didn’t see Crow coming. He must have seen me take off because he caught me up by the waist and threw me over his shoulder, loping back across the alley and the parking lot and to the van. He threw me inside the open sliding door so that I landed on the floor, crying.

Mama reached down and took me into her arms. I had wanted to get away, just get away from Heddy and never come back. I didn’t care, when I ran, what happened to my mother and father anymore. All I wanted to do was run and find help, any kind of help from anybody, but there was no one in that alley and no one in the house where I stood screaming in the night. The house was empty, deserted, and dark, and no one paid attention to a kid yelling her head off before Crow caught me and took me back.

“Don’t pull a stunt like that again,” Crow warned. He was all out of breath and sounded scared himself. He got inside and slammed the door shut.

No one said anything else while I cried and Mama brushed her hand over my hair.

I couldn’t tell them what had scared me so. They wouldn’t have believed me anyway. Mama knows I know things I shouldn’t, but she doesn’t really understand how I do it. She just thinks I’m sensitive and observant and that I pick up on things because I watch grown ups and I pay attention.

How could I tell them that Heddy’s brain was torn up and more crooked than her mouth? That she was mad as a coyote beneath a bad moon? That her head was full of chaos and death and blood and darkness so deep that it was swallowing her?

Crow couldn’t even know what was in her head. If he did, he would have run away with me and screamed for help just as I did. Or killed her. Crow should have killed her and stopped her misery, but he didn’t know about it. No one knew but me.

I don’t know where people get their problems from or how they live with them once they get that messed up in their heads. Looking at Heddy, how she drove the cars and how she never said much, you’d think she was a normal criminal--a woman heading for Mexico with her lover and how ever much money they had stolen from St. Louis. But that’s not what Heddy was about at all.

She hated herself so hard that she was like a walking hole in the world. She was like a door into some other awful place where demons lived.

Not that I believe in demons and stuff. I used to go to the Baptist church with Mama and I couldn’t quite believe some of those stories about Hell and the devil or even Heaven and God.

All I knew, tapping into Heddy’s thoughts, was that real Hell was inside people’s heads and it was worse than what the Bible said about it. Worse than a lake of fire and brimstone.

No wonder Heddy drank all the time. It was the only way she kept from stepping out in front of a truck speeding down the street.

I would have been sorry for her if I hadn’t been so scared.

When she came back to the van, I turned my face into Mama’s stomach and kept my eyes shut tight. I locked her out. Locked out Heddy’s mind and hoped I never stumbled onto the opening to it again.

I’d tell you more about what it was like, but I can’t talk about it. Just believe me. Heddy was the one we had to watch from now on. Crow didn’t feel any regret when he had to kill people to steal their cars or steal their money, but he was like a cleaning machine that swept the streets. It was nothing to him, meant nothing at all.

For Heddy, killing was personal and it was something she liked. When she did it, she did it like someone with a job she enjoyed. It was a pleasurable thing because if she didn’t kill other people, she’d kill herself.

That made her our real enemy and the only one we had to worry about. If she’d been an illness, she would have been a real slow painful one where your skin and muscles fell off your bones while you watched, unable to believe it was so.

I was afraid we’d never get away from Heddy.

#

FRANK walked through the corridors of Leavenworth, a security officer unlocking and re-locking doors behind them as they made their way to a room where one of the recaptured escaped inmates waited.

Frank remembered his impatience as he entered the room and took a chair at a scarred blue table with the prisoner. He realized the Anderson family must be hostages of Craig Walker, but they would never know where the family had been taken unless they discovered where Walker was headed. The FBI was dispatching someone soon to the prison to question the inmates, the same as Frank was doing. He just got to them first.

The initial three briefings with the returned prisoners didn’t give Frank anything to go on. They claimed the escapees hadn’t told one another of their plans for the outside. That way if one was caught, he couldn’t squeal on someone else.

Frank almost believed that. Almost. But he had to keep questioning because if he didn’t get a lead that meant Jay, Carrie, and Emily were on their own somewhere no one could ever find them.

On the fourth inmate interview, Frank got a break. Charlie Holland had been caught two days after the escape. He had been roomed in a cell next to Craig Walker for eight months before the breakout.

Frank approached him in a different way than he had the others. He said, “Look, we believe Craig’s taken a family hostage. There’s a little girl involved, ten years old.” He paused. “You have kids, Charlie?”

Charlie squirmed in his hard chair. He finally said, “Yeah, I do.”

“How many? What’s their ages?”

“What’s the difference, man?”

“Just answer me, okay?”

“Two, girl and boy. Seven and five.”

“Then you know what you’d feel like if your kid had been kidnapped. Would you want your girl or boy on a joyride with Walker?”

Charlie shrugged, but there was worry on his face. He looked as if he were having trouble with the idea of it.

“Tell me where Walker was headed. I know he told you. Or you know something. We just want to get the family free and the little girl out of this safely.”

“He didn’t tell me nothin.”

Frank lit a cigarette, offered the pack to the prisoner. Charlie took one and Frank put the Bic lighter flame to it. They sat smoking for a couple of minutes. Frank said nothing.

Charlie said, “I don’t know what you want from me. I didn’t take no kid.”

“I want to save the little girl, Charlie. And her mother and father too. Maybe you overheard something, maybe you noticed something. If Walker didn’t tell you...”

Charlie dragged deeply on the cigarette. As he exhaled he said, “Craig was hanging around the Spics before we broke out.”

Frank leaned forward. “Why was he doing that?”

“I think he was trying to pick up a little Spanish.”

Frank leaned back. “He was going to Mexico?”

Charlie shrugged again, blowing out the last of the smoke from his lungs. He took another drag. “Can I have the pack?” He asked.

Frank handed it over. Charlie put the pack into his pants pocket. “Hey, thanks.”

“You know anything else might help me, Charlie?”

Charlie looked at the locked door behind Frank as he said, “Craig’s girlfriend?”

“Yeah. We know about how she helped him by having a car waiting.”

“I think she wanted him to go to St. Louis when he got out. See a guy named Rory or go where this guy worked with some people, some kinda shit like that.”

“You have a last name, an address?”

“I think Craig mentioned ‘Prairie’. Maybe that was a street or a suburb, hell, I don’t know. When he was talking about going there, I told him he was crazy, man. He needed to head south right off, soon as he got out. He said he needed a stash and this friend of his girl’s was gonna help them out.”

Frank took that information and left for St. Louis, Missouri the same afternoon. He was on Walker’s old trail, trying to pick up a scent. All the time in the flight to the city and the drive in the rental to police headquarters, he kept Jay’s daughter and her welfare in the forefront of his mind. He hoped he wasn’t going to be too late.

At least the blood in the Riviera belonged to Walker, not one of the Andersons. They must not have been hurt badly.

But where were they now? How could they walk away from a huge pile-up and traffic snarl and disappear?

When he got to St. Louis he heard about the dead woman found shot to death alongside the road leading away from the accident scene.

Before Emily told him about the taking of the woman’s Escort, he had known that part of the story. And that’s nearly all he knew. It was much later before a report turned up on the dead owner of the blue van and the old red Escort was found abandoned in the parking lot of a PigglyWiggly store.

#

HIGHWAY 83 turned into Highway 84 outside of Abilene. At a little place called Coleman it changed again to Highway 283. But it was a tiny farm road, 783 that took them into Fredericksburg, Texas, a German-settled town smack in the heart of the rolling hill country. This is where a series of happenstance led Heddy and Crow into the arms of their outlaw enemies who had tracked them so diligently across country from St. Louis.

It was morning, hot already, a real I’m-Dying-Here Texas scorcher. The sun filled the sky, a disk of liquid gold dripping out of a blue palette, frying the earth.

The need for sweets drove Heddy into stopping at a little convenience store just inside the city limits of Fredericksburg. She told Crow to pick up M&Ms, Almond Joys, and cartons of chocolate milk while she stayed in the van and watched the passengers.

Just as Crow brought an armload of these items to the counter, the thirteen-inch black and white television playing behind the male employee ran a newsbreak special about the escaped convicts from Leavenworth, two of whom were still on the loose. Crow stood rooted to the spot, staring at his ugly, longhaired mugshot filling the small screen. “Well, fuck.”

The employee, a short man with a dark widow’s peak and a Fu Mann Chu mustache, noticed his customer’s stare, turned, and saw the same thing. When he turned back, his right sneakered foot was already inching close to the button on the floor that triggered the silent alarm.

Crow dropped the bags of candy and cartons of milk on the counter, reached into his leather bag and drew out Jay Anderson’s police issue .38 Smith and Wesson. He said, “Put this stuff in a bag and keep your foot off that alarm or I blow a hole in your dumbass face.”

The employee stiffened, his foot still shy two inches from the alarm button. Did he chance it or not?

Not.

Not with the short black barrel of the .38 aimed between his eyes. Instead, he brought out a bag and began to stuff the items into it. His hands were shaking like an old man’s. He couldn’t stop talking. It was as if a switch had been turned on and he was wound up too tightly to shut up.

“I didn’t see that,” he said, idiotically. “I didn’t see anything. Just take the stuff, mister, and walk out. You want the cash from the register? You can have the cash. Just don’t do nothing, okay? Don’t do nothing we’ll both regret. I’ve got a kid. My wife left me last month and I’m raising our kid. You don’t want to orphan him, do you? You don’t want to do anything that would hurt a kid. He’s only four, next month, he’ll be four...”

It struck Crow as hilarious the stranger was telling him his whole life story. He started to laugh, but a bell sounded as the front door opened and an obese woman strolled straight to the counter. Crow had lowered the gun when he heard the bell. Now the fat woman looked the clerk in the eye and said, “I hope you carry chili powder. I’m not in any mood to drive all the way into town for chili powder. My insurance is high enough, I’m not wanting to run it higher by driving into Fredericksburg and getting in an accident with those fool drivers.”

The clerk looked at Crow, then back to the customer. “Uh, I dunno, Bertha...”

“I’ll look for myself. I don’t expect you to come running from behind the counter, I know you have important stuff to do like read the men’s magazines you got back there and call your girlfriends on the phone...”

“What the hell?” Crow asked, glancing back at the woman making her way down one of the far aisles, still talking.

“She’s a regular,” the clerk said. “She...she talks a lot...”

“Someone should put a plug in it.”

“Here, just take your stuff, mister.” The clerk, his hands still trembling, pushed the bagged goods toward Crow.

The doorbell tinkled again and both of them turned to see a city cop walking in for his daily morning ration of a foot-long hotdog and sixteen-ounce Pepsi. The clerk mumbled, “Oh God.”

Crow knew what he had to do and fast. If he hesitated long enough for the cop to realize a man stood in front of the clerk wielding a gun, he’d draw down. Crow swung the revolver at the cop and pulled the trigger three times. Even as the shots rang in Crow’s ears, the employee took the opportunity to step on the alarm button before backing away. Crow saw in the man’s face what he’d done and shot him point blank in the face, knocking him back against the cold medicine and vitamin display before he fell forward again, dead.

The woman named Bertha came running up the aisle with a spice canister in her fat fist. She was shouting, screaming, coming straight for Crow, as if she would brain him with the plastic spice container.

Death by chili powder, Crow thought crazily. This fat bitch is out of her mind. “Fuck this!”

Grabbing the bag of groceries, he leaped over the quickly pooling blood of the cop. He knocked a woman aside who was nearly to the convenience store door to pay for a self-help gas purchase. She screamed and landed on her ass, car keys flying from her hand.

Heddy was out of the van where it was parked in front of the store, motioning with her arms for Crow to hurry. She had seen the cop car drive up and park next to her. She was about to blow the van’s horn to get Crow’s attention, but she didn’t have to. She saw Crow at the counter turn the moment the cop entered.

In the distance sirens screamed, cops making for the convenience store once the silent alarm was logged in at the station.

Crow threw himself into the van and slammed the sliding door. He was white as a drift of new snow except for two high color spots on his cheeks. “Let’s get the fuck outta here!”

Bertha burst through the convenience store door, shouting for him to come back, “Come back right this minute, you crummy little bastard killer!”

Heddy had the van started and began backing from the parking space when there was a crash that threw them all backwards against the seats. Heddy turned around to try to see out the back tinted windows. Someone opened her door at that exact moment and someone else opened the sliding door at the same time. Crow had put away his gun already so he wasn’t prepared for what happened next.

The man who opened Heddy’s door hit her in the face with a fist, knocking her over the console and into Jay’s lap. He said, “Get outta the way, you stupid bitch.”

The man who came from the side of the van pointed a gun at Crow and said, “I’m coming in.” He stepped up into the van and pulled the sliding door closed behind him with a bang.

It all happened so swiftly neither Heddy nor Crow had a chance to do anything about it. Heddy, cursing and spitting blood, climbed over the console and into the back. The man there motioned for Carrie and the girl to move back in the van to the next seat, the sofa in the rear. Now he had Heddy and Crow together on one seat. He stood yet, holding himself steady with one hand braced on the ceiling.

“Who are you?” Jay asked, but was ignored.

The man who had hit Heddy put the van into gear and pulled it forward onto the concrete apron in front of the store narrowly missing the obese screaming woman who still swung the chili powder in her fist as if it were a live grenade. She scrambled backward on nimble feet and pressed up against the front of the store.

The driver then backed the van out and around the vehicle it had struck before--their car they’d parked in the way to keep their prey from getting away.

He whipped the van from the lot and onto the street, the rear end fishtailing into the opposite lane. He headed the van out of town, north, along the same highway they had just taken into town. At the first farm road, he turned left. At the next farm road, he turned right, and he kept turning left and right on roads until they were in the scrubby hills outside of Fredericksburg and there was no sound of the sirens any longer.

At a sign for a fish camp, the man turned down the road. Dirt blossomed behind the rear of the van, filling the summer noonday air with a dusty cloud that hung motionless.

The camp was closed and up for sale. The man parked the van, screeching to a sliding halt in front of an unpainted cabin that had once served as the office. He turned off the motor.

“We want the money,” he said. “You don’t rip off six hundred thousand dollars and think you’re gonna keep it.”

Heddy looked at Crow and shrugged. Crow looked up at the man standing over him and said carefully, “There wasn’t no goddamn six hundred grand.”

The man winced and glanced at his partner in the driver’s seat. “I’ve got pliers,” he said. “Should I use them?”

“I’m telling you, man,” Crow said. “There might have been a hundred thousand at most, but nothing at all like six hundred. You got your figures all wrong.”

“Okay, Bob,” said the driver, nodding at the man in back.

The one called Bob pulled a pair of needle-nosed pliers with plastic-covered handles from his back pocket. “If you don’t have the whole six hundred, you’re going to lose your nose. You’ll never be a pretty boy again.”

“I’m telling you...!”

Heddy grabbed for her green vinyl bag between the front bucket seats and flung it at the man. “Look for yourself!”

Bob looked at the driver, got another nod, put the pliers back into his pocket. He reached down for the green bag, his gaze still trained on the two in the seat.

“They’ve got the rest in the extra tire compartment, in the back, outside.”

The two men turned to Jay. “Who’re you?”

“What does it matter? I know where the money is.”

The driver reached out and punched Jay in the face with the same fist he’d used on Heddy. Jay’s head hit the closed window and rebounded. He very calmly wiped the trickle of blood running down from his nose over his upper lip. “That wasn’t very neighborly.”

“Now answer us, smartass. Who’re you?”

“I’m Jay Anderson and the woman and little girl in the back are my wife and child. These two took our car in Missouri and we’ve been with them ever since. Hostages.”

The driver looked at Bob. “Check in her purse first.”

With his free hand Bob rummaged in the bag and brought out a two-inch packet of bills. He held it up. “This ain’t much.”

“There’s more in Crow’s bag,” Jay said.

“I ought to...” Crow started to say, but the man standing over him slapped his face so hard his head swiveled on his neck.

“Okay, all right. Stop with this heavy goon shit.” Crow reached down and brought up his leather satchel to hand over.

The man named Bob rummaged in it and found two more packets of money held together with rubber bands. He shook his head. “It’s still not much.”

“We’re all getting out,” said the driver, opening his door. “Now!”

The driver circled the front of the van, waiting while Jay came from the front and Bob and the others stepped down from inside the back of the van. Once Crow, Heddy, and Carrie were out, and the two men waited for the little girl to appear, Jay suddenly took a step back so that he was just to the left and behind the driver. He grabbed him around the neck in a chokehold and threw him forward and down. Heddy dove for the floor of the van and her open purse there while Crow bumped into the other man, knocking him off balance. His gun went off, firing wide. Carrie pulled Emily with her to the ground, covering her head with her own body.

Heddy had her gun. She turned onto her back, brought it up and fired. The bullet caught Bob just above his ear. It exited the top of his head as a nugget of hot metal, taking with it skull, gristle, and brain that spewed into the sunny air around his head like a bloody halo that dispersed before the body hit the ground.

She then turned the gun on the driver and said to Jay, “Let him go.”

The driver stumbled, coughing and choking, holding his throat. He said huskily, “Well, fuck me.”

“That’s a good idea,” Heddy said. “Crow, get your weapon.”

Crow stepped over Bob and reached in for his bag. He found the .38 and joined Heddy. He looked down at Carrie and said, “You can get up now.”

Carrie stared at her husband with stunned eyes. “What have you done?” She asked.

Jay looked only mildly surprised at his own actions. He frowned, thinking, and then he smiled. “I think I just saved our lives.”

“They’ll keep coming after you,” the driver said to Heddy and Crow. “You don’t walk off with Esponza’s loot and think you’ll get away with it.”

“Esponza’s a fucking Spic shithead,” Crow said.

“He thinks the same of you, Walker.”

Heddy grimaced at the usage of Crow’s real name. “What’s this about six hundred grand?”

“It’s what you took. It’s what we had in the house, on the tables. If you don’t give it back...”

Heddy looked at Crow. Crow had taken the money from the tables while she had the men in the house lie down on the floor, hands taped and above their heads. She had been busy, much too busy to watch him round up the cash. Crow took the money, Crow knew about the money. What a lousy thing to do to her. What a really crummy lowlife kind of deal that was. Here they’d been on the road for days now since the heist and he hadn’t said a word to her.

Crow glanced over at her and said, “Don’t fucking look at me, I don’t have it.”

“We don’t have it,” she said, sounding righteous. “You can count what we got and then you go back and tell them. You tell them someone else took the rest, it wasn’t us.”

“They’re not going to believe that.”

“It was on the tables?”

“Yeah.”

“It was stacked up and rubber-banded and it was all right there in the open. On the tables? When we hit the house?”

“That’s what I said.”

“You’ve been misinformed. It’s a fucking lie,” Heddy said, her voice rising in anger.

The driver shook his head slowly. “I think your boyfriend’s holding out.”

Heddy looked at Crow again. “You holding out? Huh, Crow? Is he fucking lying or did you make off with more than I thought?”

“I told you, no! Shit, look in my bag. You saw what he pulled out. Where you think I hid it, up my goddamn ass?”

Heddy knew he was lying, she knew Crow, and he was fucking lying. The thought caught her way down in her gut and made it burn, like pouring rubbing alcohol over an open sore. Yet she said again to the driver, “Tell them we don’t have it, we didn’t take it. A hundred grand’s not gonna break nobody. Tell them to leave us the fuck alone or we’ll kill every fucking bonehead comes after us. You tell them that.”

Heddy waved Jay, Carrie, and the girl back into the van. Crow patted the driver down and found no weapon. “You stupid goon,” Crow said.

They left him standing next to the body of his dead partner as they drove away from the deserted fish camp.

Heddy was driving, as usual, with Jay in the seat next to her. “You saved our asses,” she said. “I’m not much for saying thanks, but that was really something.”

“Then you can do something for me.”

“I’m not letting you go.”

“Then let Carrie and Em go. I earned their freedom. Take me with you.”

Heddy glanced over her shoulder at Crow. He shook his head.

She said, “I can’t do that. Crow’s attached to them. You’ll have to talk to Crow.”

“Wait till we get to the border,” Crow said. “I’d feel better if we wait.”

Jay cleared his throat. “You sure Crow didn’t take the rest of that money?”

“I think you better butt out,” Crow said, danger creeping into his tone.

“If he did, I’ll find it,” Heddy said, not willing to talk about the betrayal with Jay. She could not deal with it right now. It made her stomach hurt. She grimaced as she clutched the wheel, driving as fast as she dared away from the fish camp. She turned onto a highway leading away from the town of Fredericksburg. She’d had quite enough of the place before she ever hit the city limits.

“We have to get another car,” she said.

“I was afraid of that.” Crow found the bag of goodies from the convenience store pushed under the seat and brought out an Almond Joy bar. He handed it to Carrie and smiled at her.

The little girl looked at him as if he had snakes crawling on his head. “Don’t worry, I’ll give you something,” he said, but he didn’t think that was the problem. He didn’t think that was what was in her thoughts at all.

#

THE minute I knew Crow had double-crossed Heddy, I wondered how long it would be before she killed him.

The men after us wanted back six hundred thousand dollars. I tried to think how much that is, but I couldn’t do it. I’ve never had more than a ten-dollar allowance to spend by myself. I tried to imagine thousands of ten-dollar bills piled up and I just couldn’t work it out in my head how many piles it would take, how many tens would have to be in each pile. Mama always told me I needed to study harder in math.

When Heddy asked Crow about the money, he made a joke of it and said where would he have it hidden anyway?

Then I saw behind his eyes and inside his head and I knew where he had it hidden. I knew everything. It was like seeing a movie at fast speed, or fast-forwarding a VCR tape. I wasn’t in the van anymore. My own thoughts were replaced. I went spinning into the memories that Crow had opened up with what had just happened to us and how he was being accused and had to save his face.

It was not like I was me anymore. I was at a door to a house, a back door, the day was cloudy and there had just been rain. I could smell the grass, crushed down by their feet as they padded across it to the gray cinder path leading up to the door. I was seeing all this as if through Crow’s eyes.

Heddy knocked and called out, telling them she was there to see her friend, Rory. “Hey, Rory,” she yelled and knocked some more.

“He’s not here, go away,” someone called through the door.

Heddy grinned her crooked half grin at Crow hiding beside the steps, gun drawn, and banged on the door again, not to be denied. “He said I could wait for him here. Hey, man, how about if I pick up some rocks while I’m here anyway, ‘kay?”

Sounds of bolts being thrown and chains coming unchained rattled through the quiet morning. The door opened and a Mexican man who could have stood to lose some weight around his middle hovered there frowning at her. He said, “Who the fuck are you, man?”

Crow came from his crouch beside the steps, out of sight, and moved up the steps where Heddy had stepped aside. “No, the question is, man, who the fuck are you?”

He pushed the guy back and moved into what used to be a big open kitchen. It was still a kitchen, but on the counters there were lab supplies, beakers, tubes, vials. And something cooking, dripping from a rubber tube into a huge glass jar. There were trays of junk, trays of rock, a whole arsenal of pharmaceutical shock-joy-toys.

Two guys sat at a huge plank table made with wide smooth planks laid across sawhorses. They were counting money, putting rubber bands on it, stacking it to the side. Now they stopped, hands frozen in place. Another man came from the front of the house and stopped in the doorway to the kitchen. He said, “Whoa...” He was so big, he filled the doorway, but the blood drained from his face instantly when he saw it was a heist.

“Everyone get up slow-like and move out,” Crow said, twitching the gun at the seated men at the money table.

They rose and, with the man who had opened the door, joined the fourth man in the doorway. They all trooped into the next room that had once been a family living room. Now there was just a broken spring sofa, torn and leaking gray cotton, sitting beneath a window where the blinds were shut. Gloom camped in the corners of the room and dust motes danced lazily through the spear of sunshine leaking through the small square window in the front door. Empty pizza boxes and Chinese take-out cartons, overflowing ashtrays and empty beer cans littered the floor.

On the sofa sat two guys playing poker on the sofa cushion between them. They looked up, startled, and dropped their cards. Some of them fluttered to the floor.

“Get them down,” Crow said to Heddy.

She brought out her own gun she’d bought off Bandy and told them to get on the floor on their bellies. “Don’t fucking stand there, do it! I look like Mary Poppins to you?”

Crow backed into the kitchen, his gaze shifting from man to man as they obeyed Heddy. He took a black Hefty leaf bag from his pocket. He flapped it open and began pushing the money packets into it. He could feel his heart stampeding like a herd of buffalo and his mouth went bone dry. He swallowed hard, but he couldn’t stop grinning, thinking how much money this was, how fucking much money he had his hands on.

When it was all inside, he tied the top and dropped it to the floor for pick up on their way out. He moved into the living room again. He saw Heddy had done a fine job, a really highly excellent round up. The six men were all on the floor, lined up like bodies in a morgue, hands above their heads. She’d taped their wrists with gray duct tape.

Crow didn’t hesitate, didn’t have time. Someone else might come in any minute or some drug-crazed fiend might knock at the door, wanting to buy some shit.

Stepping to the first man in the line, Crow leaned down and put a bullet into his skull. Moving fast, not thinking, going blank as a slate chalkboard, he did the same to the next and the next. The fourth man had rolled over by then and put up his hands in some kind of plea. Crow plugged him in the forehead and heard the eerie shattering laughter coming from Heddy that did a tornado spin up the column of his spine. He shivered and moved on.

The fifth man was on his knees, trying to crawl backward like a crawfish, but Crow stopped him easy. The last man made it to the door before Crow dropped him with two shots to the back. Heddy went to him and shot him again, in the head.

It was all over in minutes, less than ten minutes and they were rich, so filthy stinking fucking almighty rich they’d never work again, never lift a finger to earn their bread. It was so exhilarating that Crow wanted to climb the walls, eat glass, and fuck horses.

That night he and Heddy stayed at a dump with torn linoleum floors and a bed that sagged in the center. They were on the edge of St. Louis, somewhere where white people wouldn’t even drive at night, much less take a room.

She wanted to see the money, sort it, count it, but he told her the truth. He had to get balled or he was going to blow a nut. They screwed their brains out and fell asleep a little after midnight.

The next morning, Crow woke at six a.m. It was prison life made him crack open his eyes and look around suspiciously. Prison made him get his ass moving not long after dawn and he hadn’t shaken the habit yet. His body clock was still striking morning wake-up call no matter how late he’d been up the night before.

Heddy had drunk about a quart of Mr. Jim and she was out, cold as a tombstone. Crow knew she would be, counted on it. He quietly rose from bed, dressed, and stuffed the majority of the money from the heavy Hefty bag into his leather satchel. Then he let himself out the motel door while Heddy snored in a blubbery drunken sleep that left spit bubbles forming between her open lips.

He drove to an office supply store and bought a large manila mailer full of bubble plastic. In the car again he took the money from his satchel and got most of it into the mailer. He sealed the envelope and addressed it to himself at:

CRAIG WALKER

DUPRAVADO HOTEL

BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS

Heddy didn’t know he’d already made reservations for them and that he’d told the manager he would be expecting a package they could hold for him until he got there.

Heddy would never know about the money.

It’s not that he didn’t love Heddy, hell, he loved her enough--or he thought he did and wasn’t that the same thing? Squirreling away the money was just what you did when you had made a promise to yourself that you’d never again in this lifetime spend years behind bars in a goddamn maximum security prison. It’s just what you did when all your life the people you trusted fucked you over. You didn’t look out for Number One, no one did, even Heddy could understand that.

No matter how long Heddy was his old lady, there was no way in hell she’d ever know he had the haul stashed away for when they might need it.

He bought a book of stamps at a convenience store, stamped the package and dropped it in a blue mailbox on the street before picking up coffee and Egg MacMuffins to take back to Heddy.

Then Mama shook me and she was calling my name, repeating it. “Emily. Emily! What’s wrong? Emily!”

When I blinked, the van was back and I was back. I didn’t want to look at Crow because if I looked at him, he’d know I knew, he’d understand some way that I knew where the money was and how he’d cheated and lied to Heddy.

“Mama? I’m okay. I’m okay.”

“She have a seizure or what? What the hell’s wrong with her? I never seen a kid act like that.” Crow sounded wound tight.

Heddy said from the driver’s seat, “If she throws up, I’ll dump her out on the road.”

Mama hugged me close to her bosom and I wanted to cry, but that would just make things worse.

“What happened to you?” She asked.

Daddy was concerned too. He was twisted around in the seat, looking worried.

“I don’t know, Mama, I...”

“You wouldn’t speak to me. You just sat there with your head all loose and rolling around, but your eyes were open. Are you sure you’re all right?”

“See what you’re doing to my family?” Daddy asked. “She probably needs a doctor. You’re scaring her to death.”

“I’m...I’m all right. I’m really all right.”

She’s probably hysterical because her father betrayed us, Mama thought.

I didn’t want to hear anyone’s thoughts anymore. I pulled away from my mother and sat up straight. I breathed real deep and then held my breath for a couple of seconds. I thought about school and doing my lessons. I thought about history and the Battle of Shiloh, something we had been studying at the end of the school year. I thought about computers and wondered if I’d ever get one like some of the kids in my class had in their rooms at home. I thought about the blanket I had when I was little, how soft and yellow it was, covered all over with little white ducks, how I hugged it against me in bed at night and felt safe and warm.

For the next hour all I thought about was me and stuff about my life and memories of my past. That squeezed out Crow and Mama so that I wasn’t a tuning fork picking up their stray thoughts.

But I couldn’t help wondering if we’d be with Crow and Heddy when they got to Brownsville. If they ever got to Brownsville so they could cross over to Matamoras. And what would happen when Heddy found out a big thick manila package packed with money was waiting there at the check-in for her boyfriend.

#

THAT night everyone was subdued and silent, even Crow, who didn’t touch his bag to hunt down a high. Heddy watched him tie the family and pull the covers over them as if tucking in his own children.

When Crow was in the shower, Heddy sat down on the bed next to Jay and said quietly, “You really did save us back at that fish camp. If it hadn’t been for you I don’t think we would have walked away alive.”

Jay turned on his side toward her and away from his wife, who lay on her side facing the other direction, smiled a little.

Heddy let her hand rest on his shoulder. She dragged it down his arm, squeezed his elbow, and then slid her hand down over his chest. She felt his intake of breath and how he stiffened.

“I think I really do like you,” she said.

Carrie began to turn onto her back. “You stay where you are. I’m not talking to you.” Carrie halted and she too got stiff.

Heddy glanced at the closed bathroom door, heard the shower running. She then leaned down to Jay and kissed him full on the lips. When she moved back a little she saw his eyes open on her. She saw in those eyes what she wanted to see.

“We need to talk,” she said. “Later.”

She stood from the bed and left him there, slightly bewildered and, she hoped, excited by what she’d done. All night she thought of him, even in her dreams. She’d wake from them, breathing heavy and feeling like touching herself. She’d fall asleep again, thinking of him in the other bed, so close yet so far.

Surely Crow could see she was getting stuck on the guy. They didn’t have to talk about this. It was just something that happened. Just because Jay was a cop didn’t mean she couldn’t get hot for him.

And anyway, he’d saved their lives. He wasn’t much of a cop, not much of one at all.

She thought he wanted her too. She would bet all the money Crow said they didn’t have on it.

#

THE next day on the road, not far from Choke Canyon Lake, outside of Tilden, Texas on Route 16, the van began to sway from a low rear tire.

Heddy stood sweating over Jay as he changed it. She told the woman and kid to stay inside the vehicle, give her no trouble. Crow wandered off from the road, peering across the empty, low hilly landscape with a hand up to his eyes to block the sun.

“You want to go to Mexico with me?” Heddy asked Jay in a low voice so Crow couldn’t hear. She’d been thinking about it all night. This was the right thing to do. This was what she wanted almost more than she wanted the money. The only lovers she’d ever been with were cons, ex-cons, losers, and junkies. She’d never had a straight up boyfriend, a guy who didn’t mangle the language, didn’t speak street lingo, didn’t want to jump her in broad daylight in the back of a hot car or up against the wall in some alleyway.

He looked up at her, squinting against the sunlight. He had great eyes, she thought. Dark brown, deep, strong and sure of what they wanted out of life. His shirt was off and his back was going from soft pink to blistering red even as she watched. He had good shoulders, if too white and tender. They were square and muscled. He was in good shape, a much better specimen of man than Crow could ever hope to be. She caught herself dreaming--even as she stood staring at his shoulders--about the night she got him hard and rode him right into heaven. She wanted that again. Over and over, every day, every night. She couldn’t remember ever wanting somebody that bad. Certainly not Crow.

“Is that an offer?” He glanced over at where Crow had moved further into the barrenness that bracketed the farm highway.

“It depends on how much you like being a cop.”

“I never liked it. I never fucking liked it.”

She smiled her half smile then put her hand over her mouth to conceal it. “I thought as much. Big as you are, good as you move, there were a couple of times you could have taken Crow out and you didn’t. There’s something on your mind.”

He turned back to the chore of screwing off lug nuts from the wheel. “You might be right.”

“You wouldn’t miss your wife and kid?”

“I’d...” he paused turning a lug nut and wiped sweat from his brow. “I’d miss Emily.”

“Even though you’d miss her, you could leave?”

“I think so.”

“Think you could help us disappear once we get across the border?”

“I could probably do that. I know some tricks.” Again he glanced at Crow, wandering away from the road. “What about him?”

Heddy made a little dismissive sound in the back of her throat. “He doesn’t like you, but he does what I say.”

“Are you sure about that? Even when it comes to me? I never heard of a threesome that lasted.”

“I’m sure. It’ll last as long as I want it to.”

“I’ve got to tell you something...”

“Yeah?”

“He took the money.”

Heddy frowned hard at Crow’s receding back. “I know,” she said. “I’ve already figured that out.”

“You know what he did with it?”

“Not yet. I’ll find out.”

“You’ll need it. Living’s not free, even south of the border. Especially when you don’t want to be noticed.”

“We’ll all need it. Don’t worry, let me handle Crow.”

Jay finished taking off the last lug nut and worked the flat tire off. He stood up, leaning the tire against the van’s fender. “You don’t hurt Carrie or Em. You don’t do that. If you do that, I’ll do whatever I have to do to take both of you out. I promise it.”

Heddy looked into his eyes. A flirty smile slipped across her lips and away again. “I’ll let them go.”

“You better mean it.”

Heddy pushed out her breasts, arching her back. “I hate useless women, but I’ll let ‘em go. In return, you help me make Crow hand over the rest of the stash.”

Now he grinned, sweat trickling into his eyes, stinging them, making him squint like a Clint Eastwood character. “I can do that,” he said and turned to put on the spare. “To tell you the truth, I’d like nothing better.”

#

HOW was I going to tell my mother? Heddy made us stay in the stifling hot van while Daddy changed the tire, but Heddy didn’t know I could peek in on her thoughts anytime I wanted to. I peeked and my heart felt like a rubber ball someone was squeezing. I gasped. Mama took hold of both my hands and said, “What’s wrong, Em? Are you sick again?”

How was I going to tell her? I couldn’t do it. She had wanted to leave him, but for him to leave her--this way--was something I couldn’t tell her about.

I tried to imagine what life would be without Daddy--totally without him, as if he had died. If we’d left him in North Carolina at least I would have seen him once in a while. Mama would have worked out visiting arrangements. It wouldn’t have been like he stopped being my daddy.

But this way, with him willing to change his whole life, giving up the law to go off with Heddy--well, I’d never see him again. Ever. I knew that. One day Heddy would probably kill him. One day when she was tired of him or mad. Or one day Crow would do it, behind Heddy’s back, and he’d call it an accident. Or the Mexican police would find them and put them all in a dark prison for the rest of their lives.

It made me so sad that I wanted to crawl under some covers on a bed and never come out. I knew now what Mama felt like when she’d been hit for doing nothing wrong. I just wanted to be very quiet, not move, not do anything, not eat, not talk, and not know what people thought. I wanted to be still like a fish that lives in black caves deep in the sea, never seeing the sunlight at all.

I put my head down on the seat and told Mama I was tired. I shut my eyes and tried to dream. If I could just dream, I wouldn’t know anything about all this. I wouldn’t know about all the killing and all the dead people. Or about Daddy and how he’d changed, how he’d let the bad moon loony come into his head and stay there, spreading evil.

I might have been ready for it if I’d ever tried to listen to Daddy’s thoughts. But I’d been too busy linking up, against my will most times, with Crow and Heddy. I thought I knew what my daddy believed and what he would do if given the chance. He was a policeman! Even when he’d helped Heddy and Crow with the two killers sent to collect the money, it didn’t occur to me that it meant what it really meant. That he wanted to be an outlaw--he was saving the outlaws so he could be one too. The only way to be an outlaw, the only opportunity he’d ever been granted was on this trip with two deadly stone crazy murderers.

He wanted to be like them. He wanted to hide out in Mexico. He wanted Heddy more than he wanted us.

As if we’d never existed.

It was like he’d died on me. The daddy I had known, as bad as he sometimes was to my mother, had died somewhere between Missouri and Texas. It was just his body that kept going. Now Mama and I were really on our own. It made me feel so lonely that I wanted to die.

#

CROW walked away from the van while Jay changed the flat tire. At least their hostage was good for something, he reflected. Hell, if he wanted to change goddamn tires in the middle of the day with the sun like a furnace. He did not, no sir, like scut work.

Hugging the road was a shallow, dry, pebble-lined ditch. He crossed it and walked into the desert land that rolled into the distance with small hills dotted with scrub brush. There wasn’t a fence here the way there usually was on land running beside a highway. Overhead the sun burned with blinding white light so that the horizon in the great far distance was hazy, a gray icing on the lip of the world. Between the horizon and where Crow walked shimmered heat mirages that danced no more than a foot above the beige cracked ground.

Crow stopped. He took a deep breath of hot air. He had never been in the Southwest before, never walked onto such a large section of dry land, never imagined how far he could see, as if to the rim of eternity. The sky was so wide and pale that it was oppressive. With only a little imagination he could feel himself tentatively anchored to the planet while it twirled crazily in space.

He had been told by a guy in prison, Prentice, that the Earth revolved at a thousand miles an hour and it was only gravity and God’s grace that kept man from being flung off into the void. Prentice read science magazines and tattered copies of science fiction novels. He was a pretty smart guy.

Crow hadn’t paid much attention to Prentice then, nodding and playing a game of checkers with him very competitively, hated to lose. But now he could feel it, what Prentice said. Out here in the Texas heat, overcome by the wide expansion of sky, the horizon standing open and empty, he knew just how insignificant he was and how fragile his existence.

He spit on the ground and frowned. Best not to think about it, about motion, about moving through space even when he couldn’t feel it. It made him too jittery. The hit of speed didn’t help, of course. He shouldn’t have done so much of it. He’d hoped getting away from the van and the others would calm his nerves. The muscles in his jaw jumped like gear wheels with missing teeth.

He squatted and picked up a handful of sand and rock to jiggle up and down in his palm. Would Mexico be this hot, this desolate? Goddamn, he’d hate it. He let the gritty sand drift through splayed fingers. How any of the scrubby, ground-hugging trees lived in this soil just amazed him.

He glanced over his shoulder to check Jay’s progress with the tire. He saw him standing, talking with Heddy. Something wasn’t quite right with the scene. Usually Heddy was exasperated with their hostages, especially Jay. About the only thing she ever said to him was to shut up. Yet now they stood like two old friends in the exercise yard at Leavenworth, shooting the shit.

Crow squinted and from holding so still felt the sun scorching his back through the material of his shirt. He turned back and stared at the sand between his knees. Heddy and Jay. Talking. Big buddies. Taking time in this fearsome heat with the sun squeezing the moisture out of their pores, talking while he was away from them. Secret talk. And about what, he wondered? What if they were discussing the missing money?

That’s what they were talking about!

He stood abruptly and moved toward the road and the van. What did this mean for him if Heddy had a thing for Jay and she didn’t trust him anymore? If she thought they were going to share the loot with him, she had another think coming. He wouldn’t even share it with her if she decided to bring Jay in on the deal.

On top of which, he absolutely loathed the man. He silently wished they had never run into the family at the caverns. He wished they had never taken their car and then brought them along for protection and security. Not this far. Too far! First it had been at Heddy’s insistence and now it was at his. They’d both made a big mistake.

The whole trip had been muddled up because the Andersons were along. He and Heddy had to watch them, feed them, tie them up, take them to the bathroom. They’d turned into babysitters. He didn’t care that Jay had saved their asses at the fishing camp. Hell, he would have thought of something. Or Heddy would have. He didn’t have to be beholden to a cop, for fuck’s sake.

As Crow neared the van, Jay was just letting down the jack and beginning to put away the tools. Heddy had already moved around the van to the driver’s door. Crow said to Jay’s sweaty back, “She’s some piece of work, huh?”

Jay flinched, not having heard Crow’s approach from the ditch. He held still before saying, “You’re howling up the wrong tree, Monkey Man.”

It wasn’t the name he’d been called that caused Crow to respond so instantly and violently. It was Jay’s tone of voice, a mocking, go-to-Hell tone. Before he knew he’d done it, Crow sucker-punched the other man in the kidneys. It was enough of a shot to take him to his knees. He didn’t stay down, though, and Crow wasn’t ready for the complete explosion of fury that whirled up from the ground into his face. Jay got him in the left eye, knocking him flat on his butt, scraping the palms of his hands in gravel as he caught himself.

Crow howled. Lights bloomed in his field of vision before receding to allow him to see Jay standing nearby, fists clenched. Crow scrabbled to his knees, to his feet, and went in toward Jay’s stomach with his head low. He’d really hurt the motherfucker now. He’d kill him! This was his chance to make everything right again.

Jay stepped aside at the last moment and this caused Crow to barrel headlong into the rear of the van. It knocked him back a step and brought back the burst of lights.

Someone had him by the arm. He twisted to lob a swing and checked it by one second when he saw it was Heddy who had hold of him. She was screaming something at him, but his head still rang from the fist in the eye and the thud his head took from the van.

He shook himself, glared at Jay. “I hate this son of a bitch.”

He could hear Heddy now. “You stop it, stop it right now, Crow. We’ve got to get on the road. I won’t have this fighting, do you hear me? You’re slowing us down, you’re just fucking up, Crow, that’s all you’re doing.”

“I hear you, but I don’t fucking believe you. Why are you taking up for this bastard?”

Heddy’s gaze flicked away from him to Jay. He read it all in that one action. She was moving away from him, her emotions were swaying toward the other man; she was being won away. What a goddamn luckless thing to happen.

“He’ll fuck you over, Heddy. Don’t you know that?”

“Why don’t you let me worry about it. Last time I looked, you didn’t own me. Now get in the damn van.”

He watched her stalk off, gave Jay one last scowl and left him standing at the back of the van. Inside, sitting next to the little girl, he shook with anger. His eye was already swelling shut and it hurt, it hurt like holy hell. He could hardly see out of it for the tearing. “Whatta you looking at?” He said to the kid. “Look somewhere else.” He ran a hand over the sparse hair on his shaved scalp.

Emily scooted away from him on the bench seat. The front passenger door opened and Jay slipped inside.

“Next time, I kill you,” Crow said to him softly.

“Not if I kill you first.”

Heddy started the van and pulled onto the road. “Shut up,” she said. “Both of you shut the fuck up.”

#

IT was after midnight before Heddy had driven them south across the state to the border at Brownsville, Texas. They had tried to find another vehicle to switch to, but nothing looked available. Heddy stopped twice for gas and to let everyone use the bathrooms. She wouldn’t stop for food, making them eat service station fare consisting of chips and stale packaged cookies.

By the time they rolled into Brownsville, Crow was wide awake, his insides jangling from not getting a regular hit of speed. He twitched where he sat on the edge of the seat, watching the signs taking them into the town. “Let’s stay in a hotel and cross over tomorrow,” he said.

“Sounds okay to me,” Heddy said. “My legs are cramped and I feel like I’ve driven around the world.”

It was simple to get Heddy to turn in the parking area for the Dupravado Hotel. The building stood in the center of the sleeping town along the main drag. It was an older, three-story structure made of earthy brown brick. A neon sign hung before the entrance, half the letters burned out. It wasn’t exactly a high class joint, but it was within walking distance to the border crossing and that’s what mattered. One of the Mexican inmates in Leavenworth had told him about it. “I come from dere, man,” he said proudly, meaning Brownsville. “The Dupravado, she right smack in de center of town and close to the border.”

Before Heddy hardly had the van in a parking slot nosed in next to the building, Crow was out the sliding side door. “I’ll go sign us in and try to get two connecting rooms if they have them.”

He sprinted across the white gravel lot toward the entrance. His moon shadow flitted before him like a nervous ghost. He had to make it inside before Heddy could see him pick up the package waiting at the desk. That meant hurrying, hurrying, practically jogging.

The hotel clerk was Hispanic, very dark, almost black. He seemed to understand Crow’s urgency--just as if he’d seen this furtive anxiety before. One eyebrow rose in query when he handed over the package that had come in the mail last week. Crow thanked him and hit him with a ten spot. The clerk smiled and stuffed the bill into his pocket. Money made everything smooth, Crow noted; it made the world his fat oyster.

While Crow forced the manila package into his large leather satchel, eyeing the door all the while, the clerk began to fill out the register in the name of Craig Walker. Crow grabbed the register suddenly and said, “Let me change this.” He took the pen from the clerk and changed the name to read: Howard Bradley. When he turned the pad back around for the clerk, he smiled widely.

The clerk just glanced at the name and said nothing. Crow waited and finally it came clear to him. The clerk was waiting for more dough. Changing a name in the register cost.

Crow hauled another ten from his pocket and handed it over. "There. Think that’ll cover it?”

The clerk smiled revealing crooked bottom teeth and closed the registry. He did not ask for identification. This was Brownsville where illegals crossed over the river from Mexico in the dead of night to head for the interior of Texas. Whether the guest was Hispanic or white, there wasn’t any point in taking down Ids, most of which would have proven false if checked out. Management didn’t care about much but the nightly fees.

The clerk took the money from Crow for two connecting rooms before glancing at the door to see a man, two women, and a child enter the front door. “Your party?” He asked, amused. Crow wondered what he’d been expecting, a few grungy gangster types?

“Yeah, that’s them. You got the keys?”

The clerk handed over the keys and said, “You look familiar. Ever been on TV?”

Crow gave him a fishy eye. “How ‘bout I talk to you about that later?” It was a promise that given time and privacy, the clerk would get more than the twenty bucks. Only if he kept his mouth closed, of course.

Crow joined the others and led them to the elevator at the end of the lobby. He hoped Heddy wouldn’t notice the extra bulge in his bag. The only way she’d get hold of the money was to kill him first. And that prick, Jay, would certainly never get it.

He almost stopped in his tracks, so taken aback was he by the random thought. Was that what she was up to with Jay? Using Jay to dispose of him so they could share the stash? He hated thinking paranoid thoughts like that. Heddy was his partner. Without her he wouldn’t even be here. He wished he could trust her again, goddamn it, he wished things were clearer to him.

When Heddy asked him in the elevator what floor button to push, he snarled at her, “Two.”

“What’re you biting my head off for?”

She was tired from driving and in no mood for his antics, he knew that. He tried to smooth it over. “I need some sleep.”

“Well, you’re not the only one, stop being such a jerk.” She added, “You get two rooms?”

“Yeah. We’ll have some privacy for a goddamn change.”

The elevator door opened and Crow went out first to lead them to the room numbers. He kept the leather satchel in front of his body, out of their line of vision. Nobody was taking his money from him. Nogoddamnbody.

#

FRANK teamed up with the FBI’s ongoing investigation in St. Louis. It was discovered that on Prairie Avenue only days before there had been a report from neighbors of gun shots. When police checked it out, they naturally went to the known drug house they hadn’t yet been able to shut down. There, with a search warrant, they found blood on the floor of the living area; enough bloodstains to indicate a slaughter had taken place. But the house was empty, totally deserted now. The drug operation had moved on. And whatever bodies had lain in that blood had also been moved.

“Rory” was one Rory Rodriguez, minor drug felon, two-time loser. He had been found dead at a service station out of state. An employee at the station remembered a pearl white Riviera that left not long before the body was discovered.

They were headed south.

Frank, along with FBI agents in conference, tried to figure out the connection between Craig Walker, Rory Rodriguez, and the evidence of blood left in the drug house on Prairie Avenue. It didn’t take much to postulate there might have been robbery involved. They’d stolen money for their flight from the Mexican gangs.

And they were still headed south, considering where Rory had been found. But the route appeared to be a strange one, leading across the state of Missouri into Kansas and only then turning south.

The bodies of the Anderson family had not yet been found. Frank and the agents all believed now the family was still with Craig and the girlfriend. It was a cross-country push with three hostages in tow.

Frank had to give the FBI what he knew about Jay Anderson. They weren’t too impressed with Jay’s background and credentials. He was in therapy? He beat his wife? What a scum.

Frank didn’t tell them he feared Jay might crack and do anything. Even join in on the spree, a lawman gone bad to the bone. And if the young criminal couple had Jay helping them out, they might actually skip the country alive. It sure increased their chances.

#

CROW put us all in one bed together--Mama, Daddy, and me. Afterward I heard him and Heddy taking a shower in the other room, making lots of noise, and laughing. They were near to the border and escape. The thought must have made them happy.

I couldn’t move around much because my ankles were tied and I didn’t have much room between my parents to move around. After a little while I got so hot, I was sweating. I whispered, “Mama, could you move over a little bit? I’m hot.”

She didn’t say anything so I tapped her on the shoulder. She was turned on her side away from me. Daddy lay on his back, both his hands and feet tied and looped together down the front of him.

Mama still didn’t say anything or move over.

Daddy said, “She’s asleep, Em. She’s tired out.” He scooted over a little to give me more room.

“Daddy?”

“Yes?”

“Are you really going to Mexico tomorrow with Heddy?”

He was quiet for a little while. “How do you know about that?”

“I don’t see how you can do it.”

“Emily, I asked you how you knew about it.”

I squirmed, trying to find a cool spot on the sheets. “I heard you and Heddy talking.”

“You were in the van.”

“I still heard.”

“Does your mother know?”

“No, she didn’t hear.”

We were whispering, but Daddy raised his head off the pillow to see if Mama was awake and listening now. He dropped his head back down, sighing.

“You don’t understand,” he said. “I wish I could explain it, but I don’t think I can.”

“I’ll never see you again if you go.”

“Sure you will! I’ll send for you to visit sometimes.” He hesitated. “I guess that’s not true. I won’t be able to do that. Not until you’re older, a lot older.

“Your mother was going to take you away from me anyway, Em. We were separating when we got back home. This is no different.”

If he thought this was the same thing I didn’t know what to think. “I’ll never see you again,” I repeated. I had to tell him the truth. “Why do you...like...her?” He knew I meant Heddy.

“It’s complicated. Maybe I don’t know exactly all the reasons why myself. She’s...she’s not like other women.”

“She’s not like Mama, that’s for sure. Daddy, she’s killed people. She should go to jail. If you’re with her, you’ll go to jail too.”

He was quiet again for a while. “If we’re caught, yeah, I guess I will.”

“And Crow doesn’t like you.”

“I don’t like him either.”

“He hid that money from Heddy.”

“I know he did. He’s a real jerk. A stupid punk kid.” Daddy lifted his head again to see if he could see past the door that connected the two rooms. Like me he could hear the two of them in the shower, playing around.

“What if Crow gets really mad about you and Heddy? When you get down to Mexico? What if he...?”

“Emily, you’re just going to have to stop worrying about me. I’m a grown man. I can take care of myself. And your mother will make sure to take good care of you. You’ll be better off without me around.”

He was right, Mama and I would both be better off, but he was still my father. I couldn’t believe what he was going to do. I had to try to stop him. “You’re a policeman, Daddy. You’re supposed to arrest people like them.”

“Sometimes, Em, people change.”

I didn’t know if he meant Crow and Heddy might change or that he had. I said, “Sheriff Eric won’t know what to think.”

Daddy let out a small grunt. “He’ll think he’ll have to hire a new recruit, that’s all. He never liked me all that much. He’s the one who sent me down to Charlotte to talk to...”

“Who?”

“Never mind.”

It seemed I couldn’t find a way to persuade my father not to carry out his plan to leave the country. All I could think to say, at last, was, “She’s dangerous.”

“I know. Don’t worry. Try not to worry. I really do love you, Em. I always have. I can’t help how I am. Things haven’t been right for me and you mother for a long time.”

We both heard the door to the hall open and lifted our heads from the bed to see who had come in. We saw the hotel clerk cross our doorway, glance in, then turn for the bathroom where Crow and Heddy showered.

“What’s he want?” I asked Daddy.

“I don’t know, baby. But I think you ought to wake up your mother. Something’s going on.”

#

HEDDY wasn’t as tired as she had pretended. Once Crow had the family bound and in the bed in the other room, Heddy pounced on him as he undressed for the shower. She came from behind snaking one hand between his legs to cup his balls and one hand around the front of him, taking his penis into her hand.

“I’m horny as hell,” she whispered against his neck, then licked where her breath had laid down a track of moist heat.

“Let me get a shower. Join me?”

She let him go and began ripping off her clothes as if they were on fire.

“I thought you were tired.”

“Not when I walk in the bathroom and catch you naked, those tight little buns staring me down. God, I love your butt.”

“You kinky bitch. C’mere.” He drew her into his arms and ran his tongue around her lips then into her mouth.

They played like children in the shower, soaping one another down, playing slapstick games, slipping, sliding, colliding--and laughing all the while with uproarious squeals and squawks.

He tried to push inside her while she braced herself with her feet against the tub rim, back against the wall, but they both slipped, nearly ripping down the shower curtain. He gave it up as a bad job until Heddy went down on her knees and took him in her mouth. He wrapped his hands in the wet tangles of her hair and groaned in pleasure as the shower beat down on his shoulders. “Oh Heddy, oh baby...”

Neither of them heard the door to the room open and someone pad across the thin carpet to the partially open bathroom door. It wasn’t until the man there spoke that they halted their shenanigans, Heddy rising to her feet. Crow slipped aside the shower curtain.

“You can go down the hall to the fire exit, up the fire escape to the roof, cross over, and down the escape on the other side.”

It was the chocolate-dark Hispanic clerk who had signed them in. Crow gaped at him. “What the fuck you talking about, man? What the FUCK are you doing in here?”

“I sent two bad dudes on a wild goose. They’re right now knocking on the door of an empty room on the first floor looking for you. Me, I’m going down the service elevator and out the back before they come up here. I think you better move it. After you pay me first.”

Heddy ripped aside the curtain, standing boldly in her nakedness, water from the showerhead sluicing down her thin body. The clerk never blinked an eyelash. She said, “They asked for us?”

“They asked for a guy named Crow, but when they described him, I knew it was you.” He pointed at Crow, then smiled grimly. “They didn’t even bother to hide the guns they were carrying. They’re bad dudes. Real forward.”

Crow viciously turned the water faucet handles and stepped out. He was covered with goosebumps and not from the chill of the air. His penis had shriveled into near nonexistence, hiding on top of his tight balls like a sparrow ducking in a birdhouse from the onslaught of a hawk.

Wrapping a towel around his middle, he hurried into the bedroom and found a packet of the money for the clerk. “Here, take this.”

“Wow, all right, that’s cool, gracias.”

“End of hallway, fire exit, up the escape, down the other side of the building?” Crow asked.

“Yeah, and quick, very quick. They coming.” The clerk made no effort to say good-bye. He was there one moment and out the door, vanished, the next.

Heddy already had her clothes on. Crow was dressed and untying their hostages in the adjoining room. “Wake the hell up, get up, get your shoes on!”

Jay was wide awake, as if he had been listening the entire time. “More buddies from St. Louis?”

Crow ignored him while untying the girl. “Put your shoes on,” he said. “Let’s go.”

In less than two or three minutes Crow had everyone out the door, the leather satchel with the money in it hanging from his shoulder like dead weight. They moved down the dimly lighted hall to the red light signaling the fire exit. Carrie took that instant to go a little crazy. She started repeating, “Let us go, let us go, let us...”

Heddy whacked her so hard in the back of the head with a fist that Carrie was thrown off balance and had to catch herself on the wall. “You don’t move it, I’ll shoot your fucking heart out.”

Jay gave Heddy a hard look while he grabbed for his staggering wife and pushed her through the exit. They all stood on a dim landing, weak yellow light from a wire-caged bulb outlining stairs that went down, stairs that went up, and through the wall window, the fire escape.

“Raise that,” Heddy said to Jay.

Jay pulled up the window as instructed. The sound was loud in Crow’s ears.

“Now go out and climb to the top.”

Jay glanced quickly at Emily as if imparting strength to her before doing as he was told. Heddy made Carrie go out next, followed by the little girl. Crow brought up the rear as Heddy moved onto the metal fire escape landing and took the rungs upward. He said, “I hate heights.”

He didn’t think anyone heard him and was maybe kind of glad for that.

#

WE were in a pot of trouble that night, I told the therapist policeman as he lit another cigarette.

It was like all the other trouble rolled up into one huge cabbage head, boiling away in a big black pot, stinking like cabbage does.

The rungs were slippery with damp and there was fog crouching on top of the building like a very big, building-size gray cat. The fog scared me more than the thought of slipping off the fire escape. We couldn’t see what might be up there on the roof. I understood there were some men looking for Heddy and Crow, and I knew they must be from the drug lab, not the police, from the way I’d heard the clerk talking about them. My main worry was--what if they were waiting for us to get up there?

I felt my legs shaking as I climbed. I kept catching little looks up at the bank of fog hovering like something alive over the edge of the hotel building. In front of me was Mama, still muttering about how they needed to let us go, just let us go, please Jesus.

Above her was Daddy and I saw when he disappeared over the edge, swallowed into the swirl of thick fog. I paused, holding my breath, and from below me Heddy tapped at the back of one of my legs. “Get fucking moving!” She said. That scared me more than any old fog so I scrambled up another few steps until I caught up with Mama.

I didn’t want Heddy mad at me, not now, not on the slippery steps.

An arm came down out of the fog, taking hold of Mama’s arm, lifting her up until she too disappeared. I was about to cry. I didn’t want to do that--cry--. I hadn’t done that hardly at all during the days we were with Heddy and Crow. I didn’t cry even when I couldn’t stop thinking about the young man who died in our motel room or the policeman Heddy shot, or the man down by the fishing camp, or those people in the convenience store. I thought I might never cry anymore and that meant I was grown, but now I could feel myself puddling up with tears half blinding me. That’s when Daddy’s strong arm reached down again and caught me, bringing me up and up onto the roof’s edge and pulling me over it into the soup.

That’s what it was like. Thick and wet, lukewarm soup. I could see vague outlines of Mama and Daddy, then Crow and Heddy as they piled onto the rooftop. When anyone moved, the fog parted and then swept back again, folding around him. I licked my lips and tasted salt. My tears, I guess, because I’d cried. I didn’t think fog had salt in it.

Suddenly that made me mad enough I stopped crying. If anyone could have seen me clear, he’d have seen I was up on my feet standing, my hands on my hips, mad and madder yet that we had been done this way. I was angry we were still being pushed around like we were little ragdolls you put in chairs at a table for a tea party. I was no doll. I was tired of all this pushing and shoving.

“Everyone hold hands. We’ve got to get across this bastard to the other fire escape.”

That was Crow. I almost didn’t mind him, didn’t do what he said, but Daddy had my hand and I couldn’t pull away or I knew I’d be lost in the fog and might fall right off the edge.

It seemed forever crossing the roof, running into stacks and vents that stuck up from the floor and tripped us before we could see them. Heddy cursed beneath her breath saying things worse than she’d ever said before. Both of them cussed all the time, but this night Heddy came up with stuff that scorched my ears.

I was about to cry again until I let the mad come back. I wouldn’t cry because of her, or of being in this awful damp fog, or of having to climb down fire escapes to keep two men from finding us. I wouldn’t cry if they beat me, that’s what I thought. Kid or not, I didn’t have to act like one and nothing we were going through was going to make me.

One by one we found the handrails on the fire escape on the opposite side of the building and one by one we carefully got ourselves onto it and down. Once out of the fog and back at street level where I could see again, I didn’t think I’d cry or, want to cry, again.

Once on the ground, Crow said, “Do we go to the van?”

“Sometimes I think your brain’s no bigger than a tadpole, honest to fucking Christ,” Heddy said. “No, we don’t go to the van, they could be there. We walk away from here, that’s what we do, now let’s go before they figure out we went over the roof.”

It must have been two in the morning. We hadn’t gotten to the hotel until a little after midnight. I was tired and sleepy, but it didn’t look like we’d sleep anymore that night.

The streets were oily black with night dew, pools of light from street lamps dotting the dark. There were no cars on the streets moving and the stoplight at the corner blinked silently from red to yellow to green. I could smell the town. It was a smell like a bag of wet kittens, wet fur and burlap.

Where were we going? What would happen if I just skipped away from them? If I just took off down a side street and ducked through parking lots, losing them?

But I couldn’t leave my mother. Who would she have if I left her? No one. Daddy had really deserted her now.

The clanging started up in my head that signaled someone was seeping. That’s what I call it sometimes when I start picking up the thoughts from someone--their minds are seeping. I tried to block it out, but it was very loud and I guess I wasn’t surprised to find out it was Crow; the thoughts belonged to him. They were strong and noisy, a herd of wild horses stomping down through canyons like in old cowboy movies.

Most of it was too mixed up crazy to understand, but one thought of his stood out. He had the money, all the money, and he’d kill anyone who tried to take it away.

Especially if that someone was Daddy.

#

IT was the first time Heddy had found herself unable to cope. As the five of them trooped along the dark sidewalk away from the area of the hotel, she slipped her hand into her bag and brought out a bottle. Needed just a sip, that’s all, something to steady her.

A sip didn’t do it. She drank deeper, longer, fire burning the back of her throat and it seemed even her gums tingled and her tongue caught flame. She paused to catch her breath, stopping on the sidewalk to blink and to collect herself. Crow turned around, scowling.

“What are you doing?” He asked. Then he saw the bottle in her hand. “This is no time for that!”

“Don’t tell me what time it is or what I can do,” she snapped, putting the Jim Beam to her mouth and swallowing a third time. She could feel it working already. A new sun sank into her belly and lit her from inside out. It was like swallowing a nuclear reactor. She even stood straighter and everything took on a supernatural sheen, coming into sharp relief. She could get on with the world now. She could handle whatever it sent her, C.O.D. or Federal Express; she was ready for it.

Crow grabbed her elbow and pulled her along the sidewalk. “Get moving,” he told the Anderson family who had stopped, impeding his path.

“Let me go.” Heddy said it so softly she wasn’t sure he had heard her.

He did let go of her arm, however. He said, “Don’t get yourself drunk, Heddy, we have to get out of here.”

Heddy looked behind them. They had turned a few times since leaving the back of the hotel building, but she could still see the three-story structure against the night sky. No one was on the street. It was as eerie as being lost in a Twilight Zone episode.

“This place is so empty, it spooks me,” she said.

“Just hold it together. We’ll find somewhere else to hole up till morning.”

“Which the hell way is Mexico?” She asked.

“I have no idea. We can’t do anything until daylight.”

They wove through the small town streets like children on an illicit lark, taking corners without knowing where they led, moving away from the heart of the business district to the dry edge of the city, always alert to passing vehicles and shadows that followed behind them.

They were nearly to the city limits when Heddy felt the repercussions of her drinking. The alcohol made her head swim so that she staggered, missing a step and nearly falling headlong onto her face. Crow caught and righted her, hissing through his teeth.

Hell, she was drunk! What a grand thing to be. She usually could drink much more than the few ounces she’d swallowed minutes before and not be affected in the least. But this time the street and the parked cars and the lights kept wavering to remind her she was not altogether sober.

It must have been the adrenaline, she decided, the flight from the hotel, the fear of a showdown with two more toughs dogging them all the way across Texas from Missouri. That combined with the alcohol sent her reeling. She had to hold onto Crow for support, which raised her ire. “You got us into this,” she accused. “It’s all your fault.”

“I fucking did not,” he said.

“Yes, you did. Don’t think I don’t know you had something waiting at that hotel. I know. And those assholes from the lab house knew too. You’re about as dumb as a wrecking yard.” She giggled at that, though it wasn’t very funny. Crow being stupid was not funny.

“Whatta you mean I had something waiting?” He sounded all wounded and peeved. It made her want to sock him.

“The money,” she said and noticed the words slurred together despite her best efforts. It came out sounding like “Uhmoney.”

“You’re drunk.”

“I’m not stupid though.”

“You’re stupid drunk.”

She pulled away from his hand and hauled back on her heels. She was nearly shouting. “You weren’t going to tell me you sent the rest of the money here! You lying, cheating-ass bucket of piss.”

“Hold on, Heddy...”

They were all standing in the middle of an empty street crossing watching The Heddy Show. She knew it, could see it as if she were standing back and watching too. She knew she was being bad, she was going straight to hell this way, but Crow made her so mad she could reach down and yank off his dick. He was trying to skim her. After what she’d done for him.

“After what I did for you!” She screamed.

“Now, stop it, take it easy...”

He approached her, trying to take her arms, but she pushed him away and fell back, catching herself just before she fell. “You don’t lay your maggot hands on me, buster.”

Crow laughed. That made her so furious she wanted to roar and fall rolling to the street. “There was six hundred thousand in that kitchen,” she said in a controlled voice so that she would not stutter, intent on getting it out in the open. “Six hundred thousand! And you ship it down here for safekeeping to that rat-hole hotel and you weren’t gonna tell me.”

“If you keep this up, someone’s going to hear you.” Crow glanced around at the middle-of-the-night emptiness and shivered. “What if those guys come cruising through here and see us in the middle of the goddamn street? What if someone calls the cops?”

The mention of the law made her eyes squint. She knew he was right, something in the back of her head said listen to him, he’s right, get your ass out of here, but his betrayal was so large, so fresh, so...so...unfair...

Tears broke and rushed down her face. She swatted at her cheeks to keep the tears at bay. “I wouldn’t have stolen from you,” she said in a small sad voice. “I was the one worked out how to get you out of prison. I’ve done everything for you...”

Crow came closer and took her arm again. “C’mon, let’s find somewhere to get off the street, we’ll talk then.”

“I want to go home,” Carrie said. The Andersons had been quiet all this time, watching the spectacle of Heddy losing her famous cool.

Heddy looked at her and said, “Is she who you want to run off with to spend that money?”

Crow denied it and told her to keep moving, don’t talk about it.

She sneaked her hand into her bag again and turning her head to the left so Crow couldn’t see, she took another slug of the whiskey. If she was going to be drunk, by God, she was going to be freaking out-of-this-world drunk, she was going to be walking-in-a-dream drunk, she was going to be so drunk she wouldn’t even remember herself.

#

IT might have taken them an hour of steady walking, but they found themselves outside of Brownsville on the outskirts where Mexican families lived in small tract houses on tiny plots of land. An occasional flower box full of geraniums lightened up an otherwise drab home here and there, but most of the houses were run down and sad as wilted daisies. There were rusted cars up on concrete blocks, broken toys hiding like soldiers in tall weeds, and dog-chewed scatters of garbage in the tablet-size front yards.

Crow hustled them all past this and through it to the edge of the development, Heddy complaining all the way. He had to get them away from town, away from habitation, though he didn’t quite know where he was headed. Now and again he made them stop while he checked parked cars at the curbside for one with a key left in it, but no luck. Even owners of broken-down ten-year-old cars weren’t cavalier enough to leave their keys in the ignition. This was a changed world. There just wasn’t any faith anymore, unluckily.

When the little girl, Emily, started lagging back, he knew he wouldn’t be holding his little group together much longer. They must have walked for miles and hadn’t seen but two other living beings in passing cars gliding ghost-like down the streets.

He must find them somewhere to rest. If he didn’t find some place safe soon, he thought there would be a revolt. Either Heddy would drop over drunk in the gutter, Jay would make a break for it, or the little girl might sit down and refuse to move again. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to carry her.

It was that kind of night, after all. Things going all wrong, going all to hell. All he could think about was the guys back in St. Louis had tracked his movements to the motel he and Heddy stayed in the night after the murders and the robbery of the loot. Could they have then had a tail on him when he dropped the manila package in the mailbox? If they could have fished it out they wouldn’t have had to track them down here, having recovered the main amount of what had been stolen from them.

Unless they’d watched him closely, how could they have known what hotel..? He remembered then the van and how they’d let the one guy live at the abandoned fishing camp up in the middle of Texas. That man knew the van. They simply tracked it down, the goddamn van. It made him want to slap his head in wonder at how stupid they’d been.

Shit. It was like he and Heddy had been dropping a trail of crumbs all the way. If they’d only tried harder to find another car to take. They had known the assholes wouldn’t give up trying to recover the money.

Hell. If only they hadn’t picked up this fucking family who were a noose around their necks. If only he’d been straight with Heddy.

If only he had Evel Kneival’s motorcycle and about one tenth his courage, he’d jump the fountain in Vegas.

That made him smile. It was not all lost, that was the point he needed to keep in mind. They’d gotten out of the hotel and evaded what surely would have been their deaths. He had a lot to smile about.

If only he could find a place to lie down until dawn. The muscles in the back of his neck were so tense and bunched when he turned his head he felt like a mannequin just coming to life.

The housing development ended abruptly on the edge of a flat field hemmed by barbed wire. Ahead Crow could see one more house sitting by itself, a silhouette in the distance. It was an old white frame farmhouse set apart from the field by a ring of tall leafy trees. No lights. No cars, either, as far as he could tell.

“We head over there,” he said, pushing Jay in the small of his back and hauling Heddy along by one of her arms. He had never seen her so ditzed. He thought if he let go of her, she’d fall flat on her ass in the road.

No dog barked as they moved up the rutted dirt road toward the house hidden in the trees. Thank goodness for that, Crow thought. He didn’t trust or like dogs, would have shot every damn mongrel he met if left up to him.

One time when he was sixteen he’d been robbing what he took to be an empty house. A big black mongrel with a face like a Mack truck came out of nowhere and bit him in the thigh, hanging on for dear life. It hurt like a motherfucker. He’d had to slam the dog in the forehead with his flashlight over and over again to get him to loosen his hold. He had the scars to prove it. Since then he had no more use for dogs than he had for a hole in his head.

There were no lights on in the house and still no evidence of a vehicle. The closer they came, the more it seemed to Crow that the house was deserted. He was sure of it when they entered the circle of trees and could see the tall rectangular windows that blinked wide curtainless eyes at the stragglers in the front yard. The door stood open to the night and any stray creatures that wished to make it home.

He breathed a sigh of relief. He thought if he had to get involved with any more hostages at this point, he’d go berserk and kill the whole goddamn bunch.

“No one lives here,” Jay said, hesitating at the edge of the weedy yard.

“Aren’t we lucky sons of bitches?” Crow said, prodding the man forward. “Get your ass in there.”

“This doesn’t look like Mexico,” Heddy complained bitterly, looking around the weed patch and swaying at the end of where he held her arm. “This does not look like fucking Mexico.”

Crow let out an exasperated sound, a cross between a raspberry and a sigh. “It’s just a place to stay until there’s light,” he said. “C’mon, Heddy, let’s go inside, you can get some sleep.”

“I don’t woan sleep.”

“Yes, you do, trust me.”

“I wouldn’t trust you to wipe mud off my shiny white ass, Crow.”

He ignored her bad temper and hustled the Andersons ahead of him up the worn steps to a small porch, and in through the sagging door.

It was just awful. That was his first thought and it was born out on closer inspection. Mexicans must have used it for a layover from the Rio Grande. There were bottles and cans, used baby diapers, even piles of human excrement dotted with toilet paper in the corners.

“God,” he muttered, his eyes adjusting to the gloom. It reminded him too much of some of the places he had to call home when he was a kid on the run. He’d stayed in warehouses, condemned buildings, rat- and roach-infested apartments where the ceilings had holes large enough that you could see the stars and make out the Milky Way.

“Looks like your kind of place,” Jay said.

“Looks like your grave yard, man.” Crow pushed him once more to make his point before guiding Heddy over to a wall where he lowered her to the floor.

“Pick a spot and go to sleep or just keep quiet,” he told the family. “I’ll have good news for you in the morning.”

“Such as?” Jay wanted to know.

“Will you let us go then?” Carrie asked.

It was Emily that Crow looked at when he let the news out. She had been staring at him the whole time, all the way down the driveway and into the house, just as if she was puzzled by what he was going to do with them. Now was the time to let her know. She was just a kid, after all, none of this was her fault.

“Yes,” he stated simply, still speaking to the girl. “Tomorrow me and Heddy light out for the border and you’re free to go.”

“Why not tonight?” Carrie asked.

He turned from Emily to her mother. “If you have to ask that you’re not as smart as I thought you were. Now sit down and alla you shut up.”

He heard the swish of liquid from behind him and knew Heddy was at the bottle again.

Goddamn her.

#

WOUND up, unable to stop, like someone popped new batteries into her. The Energizer Bunny. That’s what I thought about how Heddy got going that night in the farmhouse. It wasn’t long till dawn. My eyes were tired and felt scratchy, and I was thirsty. I thought I could put my head in Daddy’s lap and go to sleep, but Heddy had been drinking like crazy. Once she started talking it was like a river washing over us. Even Crow couldn’t get her to stop.

“You think this house is bad? Hell.” She slurped from the bottle, emptied it, and threw it across the room where it slid and hit the wall. She rummaged in her purse and brought out another bottle, a full, unopened one. When Crow tried to take it from her, she took a swing at him. He put up his hands in surrender and said, “Okay, fine, drink that shit till your eyes fall out for all I care.”

“I guess you think I’m gonna tell you about all the dumps I’ve had to live in. Well, I’m not!” Heddy said. “You think I’m pissed off my mother’s husband hit me so hard in the face I can’t even move half my mouth. Well, I am! I’ve been pissed off ever since. That’s how I live--pissed off and pissed on. He got a dull knife through his ribs for it, though, so I figured it evens out. People like you...” She waved her hands at us and made a face before taking another swig from the new bottle. “People like you feel sorry for people like me, but I’m here to tell you you’re dead, you’re walking around dead people. At least I’ve lived a little.”

“Take it easy, Heddy,” Crow whined. He had moved closer to her and now sat cross-legged not far away. His gaze kept shifting between Heddy and us where we were huddled together near the center of the open room--the only area not littered with trash.

Moonlight spilled across the floor like a silver river coming through the door. I couldn’t see it, the moon, but it had to be out there just above the edge of the trees. I shivered from the damp air and scooted over closer to my father. He hadn’t been saying much at all and neither had Mama. Now that Crow had promised to set us free once it was morning, we could all stop worrying about it. There was no reason for them to hurt us. Even when we told they’d gone into Mexico, no one would ever find them.

But was my Daddy still going too? He’d said he was.

While Heddy ranted on about her sorry life, I looked at Daddy from the sides of my eyes. Would he really leave us? For Heddy? For drunken and full-of-hate Heddy?

I closed my eyes to shut out Heddy’s voice. I felt a purple wave of sadness coming off her. Once it touched me, I’d be swamped under all those feelings like under a big wave coming into shore from an ocean. What did Daddy think of her now that he could see her drunk and disorderly just like the people he put in jail?

My eyes flew open and I turned my head to stare straight at my father. He was crazy about her! I had picked that up like a radio picking up a strong station for just a second or two before it fades out again. He wasn’t disgusted by her drinking like the rest of us were. He thought she was exciting, she was unpredictable, he thought. She was very dark and scary, like a storm cloud filled with streaks of lightning. He was...he was...I don’t know how to say this except to just say it. She turned him on.

My father wanted her for his lover, drinking or not, deformed mouth or not, criminal or not.

Then information came to me that made my head reel. Heddy wasn’t the first woman he’d liked this way. There had been others, women from the street in our town, even women on the police force, women Mama never knew about. A lot of women.

I wished I’d never found that out. It made me so unhappy that I wanted to cry again.

I moved away from Daddy. I didn’t want to be near my father anymore. I made up my mind never to meddle in his thoughts again. If he wanted Heddy that much, he was lost to us anyway. Mama sure didn’t need him.

He had been cruel to her; I understood that really for the first time that night. How cruel he’d been. He might have been my father, but I stopped loving him like one that night once I knew he was no better than the two people who had kept us prisoner so many days. He was just a criminal of another sort. All his crimes were hidden away under cover. He beat his wife, he went to bed with strange women, and he would break the law and give up his family for the love of money and sex with Heddy.

“...Even Crow doesn’t know about my life, not really,” Heddy was saying. When he tried to protest, she shushed him real loud with a finger to her lips.

“And Crow don’t know me too damn much because if he did, he wouldn’t have tried hiding most of the money from me.”

Before Crow could say anything else, Heddy felt around in her big purse again and produced her gun. She didn’t wait to aim it, but waved it high. She pulled the trigger, shooting above Crow’s head. The shot filled the house, the burst of fire from the cylinder and the noise made us all jump and let out scared noises. The smell from the gunfire caused my nose to wrinkle up and I put my hand over it.

Mama grabbed my hand and pulled me under her arms. “Please don’t,” she said. She was crying and her voice was all wavy and trembly.

“Hell, what’re you doing, Heddy?” Crow got to his feet and moved halfway across the room from her. “Someone will hear that.”

“Someone will hear that,” she mimicked and fired again, this time to her right, at the wall. Plaster splattered onto the floor.

My ears were ringing. I wished we could get out of the house, run for the door and disappear across the field toward the other houses where we could find some help. Crow promised us we could go free in the morning, but here we were in terrible danger just before we could get away from them. Heddy had gone crazy, that’s what had happened. The whiskey made her careless and mean.

“Heddy, put down the gun.” Daddy also came to his feet and took a step toward her.

“This motherfucker tried to screw me out of the money,” she said, waving the gun at Crow.

“I know, I know, but shooting him now won’t solve the problem. You keep shooting and someone might call the cops.”

“I swear to God, Heddy, I was gonna tell you.” Crow looked ready to bolt for the door.

She shot his direction and he danced around the floor like he would be able to dodge the bullet. Heddy laughed and lowered the gun to the floor, her head hanging. “I ought to shoot his guts out.”

“You can have the money!” Crow hurried to his leather bag and pulled out a thick manila envelope that he threw over to Heddy. “Goddamnit, I was just keeping it safe for us.”

Heddy started to laugh louder. “You don’t think I’d get it? You think giving it to me now makes it all right again?” She raised the gun. “I’m going to kill you, Crow. You deserve it, don’t you, you little creep?”

“Shit, Heddy, stop messing around...”

She squeezed off another shot and Crow fell down on the floor. I screamed. I thought he was dead and I was afraid to look, but I couldn’t help myself. He had fallen on his butt and then over to one side. He sat up slowly. He said, “Don’t kill me, Heddy. Please don’t. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I took the money without telling you.”

The gun in Heddy’s hand wavered. I heard her crying and looked at her. I didn’t think she ever cried. All this time with them and I could never imagine her crying like other people.

She dropped the gun with a clatter on the wood boards of the floor. She brought both hands to her face and wept into them. It was so pitiful. I didn’t want to feel sorry for her, but I couldn’t help it. She was scary, she was crazy, she was drunk, and she was a killer. But now she was crying like a little kid, her shoulders all hunched over and shaking.

At that moment it could have all been over. Daddy was closer to Heddy than Crow and if he’d wanted, he could have stepped closer and taken the gun from the floor. Crow didn’t have a gun out. Daddy could have ended it all right there, by taking control. He could have held them prisoner, turned the tables on them, and turned them into the law.

But he didn’t.

I looked up at him, waiting, mentally urging him to do it, to do the right thing, to end all this. At the same time I understood what opportunity he had let go by, Crow finally realized it too. He scrambled forward on hands and knees and snatched the gun lying in front of Heddy. He rolled onto his back and pointed it at Daddy. “You get back,” he said. “Sit down over there.”

I’ll never know what was going through Daddy’s head right then. It was like he didn’t want to be the boss. He didn’t want to straighten it all out and take Crow and Heddy into custody.

Of course he didn’t. He wanted to go to Mexico with them.

My daddy was truly one of the bad guys. Even my mother knew it now. We all knew the whole truth now.

#

CROW cuddled Heddy in his arms and let her cry against the front of his shirt while he rocked her. He felt a bottomless well of regret brimming up from his chest into his head. In those murky waters floated all the events Heddy had survived to make it to this place along the border of Mexico. Also floating in it, rubbing against his sensitivities like spiny fish, were the things he had done and seen and overcome.

They were so much alike, the two of them. It’s why they clung together, why they needed each other.

Not many times had he recalled feeling so responsible for so many wrongful deeds. In order to kill, it seemed to him, the reality of murder has to slip off and away from a person. Else he will feel answerable and too horrible to keep going without putting a bullet through his own head.

Like Heddy, he had done what he thought he had to do. When you have never been free and the possibility of freedom comes along, there is nothing to do, but take it, he thought, what else could you do? Prentice told him that once while they played checkers in prison. Prentice, the jailhouse philosopher, always reading and saying stuff no one else would say. Others made fun of him for it, but Crow knew there was a kernel of truth in some of the crap Prentice said.

That’s what the six hundred thousand dollars represented. Freedom for the first time in his miserable life. It was dirty money, illegal and tainted. It belonged to anybody who could keep it. Now that he had betrayed Heddy and made her cry, he could see he had done one of the worst things in all his life. He never should have mistrusted her. He shouldn’t have tried to keep secrets from her. He shouldn’t have been so selfish.

He stopped rocking and glanced over in the shadows at Jay Anderson. Heddy wanted the jerk along, but that wasn’t a betrayal. To betray a person you stole his freedom. Who you had sex with had nothing to do with it. Hadn’t he done his thing in prison, hadn’t he even come close to doing it with Carrie? It didn’t mean he wasn’t still attached like a Siamese baby to Heddy’s side.

He didn’t know how it was going to work out with three of them trying to keep a low profile in Mexico with that kind of money, but Heddy’s wanting Jay along--and he was sure that she did--did not constitute reason to desert her.

Hell, she had every right to shoot out his guts. He didn’t know what he’d been thinking, shipping off most of the money that way.

The first time he met Heddy they’d been at a party. About twenty people were downing drugs like there was to be no tomorrow and the rest of them were getting drunk. It was loud, people spilling throughout the house into all the rooms.

He had found Heddy sitting alone in a broken wicker chair near an open back door. The sky outside was clear, sprinkled with stars. She just sat, staring up at the sky, her hands clasped together between her knees. She wore black jeans and a tight black halter-top. Pale bare skin showed between the bottom of the top and her jean waist. She was thin and ethereal, her hair hanging long around her shoulders. He remembered noticing the little black sword tattooed on her breast, the tip of it hidden by the halter. She was so cool, untouchable, a little beauty queen sitting apart, all on her own.

He had wondered, too, why she was alone, pretty girl like her. Then she raised her face to him as he came around her and to the open door and he saw something wild and unformed in her eyes. When the small smile came, it only raised half her mouth, causing her to look both grotesque and vulnerable at once. He was careful not to let his expression change. He knew instantly that any future relationship they might have hinged on his first reaction.

He said, “Hi there,” and she told him her name. He had thought at first it was a nickname, “Heady,” meaning she could make a man crazy or she gave great head, hell, what did he know, but she spelled it for him right away. “H-e-d-d-y,” she said and smiled crookedly.

He had never been able to explain why this particular woman moved him. Over the next two years, before he’d been busted for nearly killing the guy in the pool hall and going to prison for it, he and Heddy lived together in a small shambles of a house in one of St. Louis’ least desirable neighborhoods. They made out the best they could. When they had to steal to stay alive, Heddy never flinched; she was always right at his side, willing to take the risks.

She had brought him money to Leavenworth, saving him from having to toss the salad of every big goon in the place. She’d stuck by him. And she’d worked out the plan for his escape.

For this he had betrayed her. Hadn’t trusted her. Meant to keep it all for himself.

He rocked her until she slept and then eased her down into his lap where he gently removed the curly wig from her head and brushed back the long tumbling hair from her cool temple.

God, he couldn’t wait until the sun rose. They could get out of here and cross over the border, pretending they were American tourists on a little day jaunt. They’d wait until there was a crowd crossing and tag along with them as if in their party. They’d hurry across the river and on the other side...

On the other side they’d really be free forever. He and Heddy. And Jay too if that’s what she wanted. He owed her the concession. He would never betray her again.

#

THEY had dozed, fatigue taking them one by one. They all lay curled and lying on each other--Emily with her head in her mother’s lap, Carrie lying against her husband, Heddy and Crow wrapped together like snakes tangled together on the hard wood floor.

The first Crow knew there was someone else in the deserted dark house besides them was when he woke with a gun pressed hard against his skull. His eyes opened wide. He blinked and drew in a sharp breath.

A voice said, “You should have gone further south a lot faster. Get up.”

Heddy sat up, startled when Crow moved. She squinted at the two shadowy figures hovering over them and said, “Who the hell...?”

Crow knew now that one of the cars passing them as they walked through town must have been these two men they’d fled from at the hotel. He was suddenly scared for his life. It was not the first time, but on some riotous instinctive level he knew it might really be the last.

“They just want the money, Heddy. Give it to ‘em.”

“What’s going on?” Jay had wakened and so had his family. They all sat up in the near dark, Emily rubbing at her eyes.

“Who are you?” The man with the gun spoke to Jay. He stood between the two groups on the floor. He flicked on a flashlight and shined it directly into Jay’s face, then swept it over Carrie and Emily.

“That must be the hostages,” the second man said, stepping forward. “They took them in Missouri.”

“Oh yeah. You’re famous,” he said to Jay. “You’re all over the news. They’ve even got the FBI out looking for you. Cop, they say. You a cop?”

“Yes.”

“Not a very good one if you got stuck with these two little petty thieves without a struggle.” He turned back to Crow, shining the light into his eyes.

“Hey!” Crow shielded his face with his hands.

“Where’s the money? We want it and we want it now.”

“Heddy’s got it. In her bag.”

Heddy didn’t react. He was hoping she’d know what to do. The envelope he’d thrown at her earlier lay crumpled between them, covered by their legs. In that envelope Crow believed as much as four, even five, hundred thousand dollars were preserved. These guys weren’t getting it unless they stepped over his dead body. He was dead anyway if they took it from him. He and Heddy could not live without it to pay off officials in Mexico. He sure as hell wasn’t going down there to work in a cantina waiting tables or something the rest of his freaking life.

Heddy seemed to come to life slowly, as if waking from a dream. She must have been hung over, but it didn’t show except for her dreamy, slow-moving quality. She said, “I’ve got it. Right here.”

The man with the flashlight did as Crow thought he would. He grabbed out for Heddy’s bag before she could get her hand into it. While preoccupied this way, Crow carefully reached out in the darkness beside him and felt around in his own bag for the gun. He felt one, knew it was Jay’s service revolver, pulled it free as quietly as possible.

Then he fell onto his back suddenly, lifted the gun, not knowing how true his aim, and he was pulling the trigger. Fire bloomed, lighting the room, once, twice, and the sound echoed off the walls like Fourth of July cherry bombs.

The man holding Heddy’s purse dropped where he was standing. Heddy’s bag fell with the man. The flashlight banged onto the floor, rolling wildly as the light from it skittered across the room. Crow couldn’t see the man who had been behind the first he shot.

Heddy was up and moving. The whole room came alive with motion. Crow couldn’t see a thing as he slid around the floor on his back, pointing the gun, afraid to shoot, afraid he’d hit Heddy or one of the Andersons. He couldn’t make out who was who, didn’t know where he should aim. He was breathing fast and hard; his stomach seemed so tight it would fold in on itself.

A bright burst of light blossomed from ten feet away and Crow felt something rip into his thigh. He screamed, dropping his gun. He’d been hit, goddamnit!

Someone had hands on him and he tried to lash out, but stopped in time to keep from knocking Heddy away. She felt along his body and then the floor until she found the gun.

The whole room lit up with sound and smoke. Heddy and the man with the gun spattered the darkness with rapid-fire blinks of harsh white blasts.

Crow ducked, covering his head with his arms, squirming and moaning from the scalding hot pain shooting up from his thigh. He expected to be hit again, to die here on the floor of a filthy house on the night before the door opened to real freedom. He was yelling without knowing it, “Nononononono...!” He was panicked to the point of insanity.

The firing ceased and the clicking of a hammer on an empty cylinder was all that remained. Crow threw off his arms from around his head and tried to see something, anything. Heddy kneeled over him, her legs against his back, and it was she who was holding out the revolver before her, clicking and clicking on dead air. She finally slumped back on her heels.

“Is he...?”

Heddy said nothing. She lowered the gun and finally dropped it to the floor. Crow could now hear the little girl crying from somewhere across the room. He saw shadows entering a doorway from the back of the house. Jay said, “Is it over? Heddy? Heddy, are you all right?”

#

DADDY was the one who got the flashlight and found the dead man. The other man was hurt, but not dead. He was shot twice, once in the stomach and once in his arm. Daddy moved the flashlight beam over his body, the blood showing up like black spots against the man’s clothes. He was sprawled on the floor like a baby, holding both hands over his stomach and crying now. He’d been shot in the same place as the boy at the motel days before. In his stomach.

“Help me, I’m dying,” he said to Daddy.

Swinging the light away from him, Daddy rested it on Crow. Heddy was helping him to sit up. There was blood coming from his leg, staining the floor black. “You’re shot,” Daddy said.

“Yeah, he was hit in the leg,” Heddy said. She pulled her bag over to her and drew out a tee shirt. She took it by the neck and ripped it down the center, jerking at the material and cursing when it failed to give the first couple of tries.

“I’m dying!” The man said again.

Daddy kept the light on Crow’s upper leg while Heddy wrapped the shirt around it twice and tied it in a knot.

“How are you going to cross the border like that?” Daddy asked.

“Are you always so goddamn practical?” Heddy yelled.

“I’m a cop.” He shrugged as if to say it was expected of cops to make practical remarks and to think ahead.

“If you’re a cop, man, do something for me,” the dying man said. “I’m losing too much blood.”

Daddy turned back to him and stooped nearby, playing the light over his midsection. I could see how the blood had coated his hands, the slimy blood dripping off his knuckles to the floor. I cringed and turned away my face. I couldn’t watch it anymore.

Daddy said, “You’d die before anyone could get you to a doctor. It’s too late.”

The man clenched his teeth and moaned even louder.

“Shut up!” Heddy had finished tending to Crow and now she stood up and stalked over to where the man was on the floor. “I’ll put a bullet in your head if you want me to. You want me to?”

“No! Don’t let her near me, don’t let her do it!”

Then Heddy laughed and that was the weirdest thing to hear. There was the smell of blood everywhere and the lingering scent of the gun blasts. There was darkness except for the small pool from the flashlight that played over the man on the floor. Then Heddy’s crazy laughter took hold of the room and I thought this was probably what it was like in war when people had to kill; it made everything all wrong, all crazy. People laughed when they should cry, they bled and died and there was enough hate between them to raise the devil.

I heard a gurgling sound and even though Mama held me tight, one arm around my neck, I turned my head and looked over. Daddy had the light on the man’s face. He was dead. His eyes were open, but he was dead. His whole face had relaxed and gone slack. I thought dead people had closed eyes. I couldn’t stop staring at the man’s unblinking open eyes.

Mama hugged me to her and said softly, “Don’t look, don’t look, baby.” She was trembling and her teeth were chattering although it was a warm night.

I heard Daddy say; “The problem remains. How are you going to get Crow across the border hurt like that?”

“You’ll help him,” Heddy said. “He can lean on you.”

“With that bloody shirt tied around his leg? The border guards aren’t blind, you know.”

“You’re not leaving me behind,” Crow said.

“Of course not!” Heddy went to him and checked the tied shirt. She looked up at Daddy. “We’ll buy some stuff at a drug store and bandage it right. I’ll get him new jeans. You’ll help him cross the bridge.”

I didn’t hear Daddy answer, but I imagine that he nodded his head. He was part of this now. Like Crow, he did whatever Heddy said.

#

WHILE Frank Hawkins listened to what went on in the house on the outskirts of Brownsville that night, he remembered where he had been at the time. In a private plane with two FBI agents on their way to the border city.

After picking up Craig Walker’s trail south, they could see they were headed for Matamoras to cross. Early in the morning after their arrival hysterical calls came into the city’s police department. There was gunfire at an abandoned house not far from a small subdivision at the edge of town. A patrol car was sent to investigate and didn’t see anything out of order. No cars, no lights, nothing. They drove on past on the road without turning in. Within two hours more calls came in reporting a second round of gunfire coming from the same house.

This time Frank and the agents accompanied the locals in a car to check it out. They parked in the subdivision and went on foot across the pasture toward the house in the trees. Once close enough, they heard voices and knew the place needed to be staked out. They’d heard a child’s voice. They weren’t going to rush in during the middle of night, in the dark, and put her in harm’s way.

This called for careful work. It meant they needed to regroup and think it over. Leaving a patrolman at the subdivision’s edge with a radio, they returned downtown and made plans. They needed men. They needed a negotiator. They’d have to call in some help.

Before daybreak, they had it.

#

WITH dawn came the sound of a bullhorn commanding they come out with their hands raised.

Crow must have slept a bit because at the noise he fairly leaped out of his skin as if roused by shouts from a monstrous dream. “What?”

The others moved and came fully awake, everyone speaking at once.

Jay didn’t even look as if he had slept. He hurried to one of the windows. “It’s the police.”

“What the fuck..?” Heddy struggled up, licking her bottom lip and looking pale and hung over.

The little girl said, “Daddy, will they shoot us?”

“Oh god, they’ve surrounded the house,” Carrie said.

“Take it easy, hold on,” Crow said. “Heddy, help me onto my feet. The rest of you move away from the door.”

Outside the sun poured brilliant splashes of light through the trees. Beyond the overgrown weedy yard stood a line of patrol cars, lights blinking obscenely in the new sunshine. Crow leaned on Heddy’s shoulder. They could see some kind of tactical team dressed in riot gear--helmets, jackets, and high-powered rifles--a whole force of men peeking from behind fenders and hoods.

Crow moved back and through the house, finding his way to the rear with Heddy’s help. The kitchen was in back and a bolted door to the outside. He peered through the dusty windows and didn’t see anything, but that didn’t mean they weren’t out there somewhere.

“See anyone?” Heddy asked, a tremor in her voice.

“Nah. Nobody. Stay cool now.”

His mouth was dry and his stomach clenched into a knot. His leg burned like it was on fire. Every time he took a step, pain shot up into his groin.

Someone had heard the shooting and called in the cops. Maybe their friends from St. Louis, the two men lying dead on the floor in the front room, had won after all. It wouldn’t, by God, surprise him to learn that’s how they were trapped--trying to save their lives they had forfeited them.

He hurried to the front room again. Heddy let him lean against the wall near the window. She began nervously refilling her gun’s cartridge clip. She kept dropping shells and saying, “Oh shit, oh shit.”

“What are we gonna do, Heddy?” It was as if his brain had skipped. There seemed to be two alternatives, give it up and walk out or take a stand, neither of which appeared to be actions he could indulge. Surrender his life into the state’s hands again? Or shoot it out with a squad that outnumbered them five to one? It was a fucking western, is what it was. It was high noon in Brownsville, Texas, the problem being he was no Gary Cooper.

“I didn’t see anyone in the back,” she said.

“No, but they might be hiding in the weeds or behind the trees out there.”

“Okay, we tell them we have hostages. We have a kid in here.” She scowled at the girl. “We get them busy in the front and then we break for it out the back.”

He hadn’t wanted her to say that. “Hell, Heddy...”

“WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?”

Her shout shocked him enough to make him flinch and hunker his shoulders. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t ever fucking know. Now take this gun and watch that window.” She pointed to the one right of the door. She moved quickly to the opposite window on the left.

“Craig Walker! Harriet Arnold! You have five minutes to come out with your hands behind your head!” shouted the voice over the bullhorn.

“Listen to them,” Jay said quietly. “I don’t see a way out of this.”

Heddy whirled around. “You better find a way out of it or you’re going to be just as dead as we are.”

“If you’ll let Carrie and Emily go out, I’ll help you,” he said.

“No fucking way.” She turned back to the window and suddenly smashed out a lower pane of glass with the gun. To Crow she looked like someone gone mad. There was a darkness in her eyes that meant real business this time. He’d seen her this way just before they took the lab house and if she’d not been on his team, it would have scared him to death.

“We’ve got three hostages in here!” she shouted. “There’s a family. The kid’s ten years old. You want to talk to me about that, you want to negotiate this thing?”

Heddy waited, glancing over at Crow, and once back to Jay. Crow hugged the wall near the window, gun in hand, afraid to look out there, afraid a marksman would have him in his scope dead on.

“Send out the child,” the man with the bullhorn yelled.

“You must think we’re idiots!” Heddy pointed the gun out the broken pane and pulled the trigger carefully.

That’s when all hell broke loose.

#

CROW never would have believed a tack team would open fire on a house filled with hostages. As the gunfire was returned when Heddy pulled the trigger, all he could think was that some hothead on the team got out of control and started off the shooting.

Bullets riddled the walls so that they all had to hit the floor on their faces. Windows burst, shattering glass over them. Everyone was screaming, Heddy, Carrie, Emily. Even Jay was shouting furiously how they couldn’t do this, they weren’t supposed to do this!

Crow saw Jay crawl over to the window where Heddy lay. “Give me a gun,” he yelled. She brought out a gun one of the two men had been packing who caught them sleeping earlier.

Jay got to his knees to peek out the window. He said, “Carrie, Em, stay down.”

He said to Heddy, “C’mon, you wanted a fight, you’ve got one.”

She looked up at him as she might look at a hero and got to her knees, then to her feet. “Let’s do it,” she said. “Fuck it.”

Crow moved back to his own window and, trembling like a man with palsy, raised his gun to the frame.

#

IN the first barrage of gunfire I think I realized if I stayed in the house, I’d die. Oh, well, don’t apologize for those men, it wouldn’t have mattered what they did at that house, it was all going sour the minute they showed up. I guess I should say it all went bad when we stopped in at the Long Horn Caverns and got hooked up with Heddy and Crow.

“It got out of hand,” Mr. Hawkins said sadly. “The hostage negotiator was on his way from Houston. Orders were not to fire because they knew you were in there, they knew there were hostages. But once Heddy starting firing, it was all over. A hothead riot cop who hadn’t been in the unit but two weeks lost it and started the whole thing.”

Well, I said, it was a terrible thing, but Heddy wouldn’t have let us come out without a fight. During the next session of gunfire, Mama was hit. We were holding one another, trying to stay down. I don’t know where the bullet came from or how it found her, but it did. I had my arms around her waist, my head buried in her lap when she was struck. She fell back, letting me go, trying to catch herself. She must have cried out, but with all the noise I didn’t hear her.

I felt her arms come away from me and I started to sit up to see what was wrong. There was a blank look on her face. I screamed, “Mama!” as she topped onto the floor on her side. I tried to turn her over to see where she’d been hit. No one even knew about it except me. Daddy was busy at the window being an outlaw, helping his new partners.

There was blood on Mama’s chest and although her eyes were still open and blinking, I knew she was probably going to die. I leaped up and ran for the door. I didn’t know what I was doing anymore. I pulled the door back and I heard Daddy yell at me to stop, wait, but I was already outside on the little porch and flying down the steps, and then I was crossing the yard while all around me everyone was shooting at everyone else. I had my arms up in the sky and I was crying, “My mama, my mama’s hurt!”

I know now it was a really dumb thing I did. I could have been killed easy. I wasn’t thinking, I wasn’t even afraid. I had to get help for her, that’s all I could think about, I had to get out of the house and get help or she’d die.

Mr. Hawkins lit up a new cigarette. He inhaled before saying, “You’re a brave little girl, Emily.”

I wanted to tell him bravery had nothing to do with it. He didn’t understand. My mother was all I had left. If I lost her, I’d have nobody.

#

JAY stopped firing when he saw his daughter racing across the ground between the house and the police cars. He felt his heart surge up to the roof of his mouth as he raised the barrel of the gun to the ceiling and watched, horrified and breathless, as Emily shot across the firing range. When she made it without being killed, when she was grabbed by one of the officers in charge who had been taking cover behind the back fender of one of the cars, and when she was dragged behind the car to cover and safety, he let out his breath. It had happened so fast that he still couldn’t believe he’d seen it.

“That little bitch!” Heddy screamed. “Goddamn it!”

Jay turned from the window to find out where his wife was. Was she too going to follow Em out the door into the hail of bullets? A second shock traveled through his system as he took in her prone position on the floor and the blood that covered the front of her blouse. “Shit,” he mumbled, going down to his hands and knees to crawl over to her.

“Jay? Jay, get back over here!”

He ignored Heddy’s command. Carrie had been hit. Maybe she was dead.

“Jay!”

Heddy’s scream finally got through to him and he halted halfway across the floor and turned back. He had made his pact with the woman. With the devil. He had made his pact with the devil and there was no going back now.

He reclaimed his spot at the window in time to see Crow crawl across the floor toward Carrie. He looked away. Let Heddy handle him, the betraying son of a bitch.

#

CROW reached her body and grabbed hold of the front of her bloody shirt, ripping it open. The wound pumped blood from just below the bra line under her left breast. Lung, he thought. He saw her chest heaving and saw that her mouth was wide open. She was trying to suck in enough air to stay alive.

He twisted and shouted, “Carrie’s hit! She’s going to die if we don’t get her out of here.”

“Fuck her,” Heddy said. She jerked around the window frame and fired off two shots before hiding again.

“Let’s try going out the back while they have the kid,” Crow said. “We gotta get outta here, Heddy. Now!”

Heddy looked at him and the oddest look came over her face. It was as if she only now really saw him near Carrie’s body and the sight sickened her. She ducked and crab-walked to where he kneeled. “C’mon, we’re going.”

Crow glanced down at Carrie; his gaze riveted on her struggling face.

“Okay,” he said finally, moving away from the bleeding woman.

“I’m telling you one last time, Jay,” Heddy called to Jay where he crouched at the window. “We’re leaving. It’s our only chance. You coming?”

Jay dropped suddenly to the floor and crawled over to join them. “Yeah, I’m coming,” he said, avoiding looking at his wounded wife.

Heddy gestured to Crow and they made for the kitchen and the back door there.

The gunfire still came from the front of the house, no one there realizing the people trapped in the house were on their way out.

#

CROW thought he knew the future when he saw the kid run out the door into the gunfire. They’d all be dead before the sun ever got up to the middle of the sky that day. A premonition? No, it was simple enough to realize what was coming for him.

When Carrie went down, Crow knew then that the whole thing was falling apart. His suggestion that he and Heddy go out the back was a last desperate attempt to sidestep what he knew was going to happen. They were not going to be able to hold off a whole squad of cops in riot gear. They’d already emptied three of the guns. He didn’t tell Heddy, but his own gun was hitting on an empty clip.

And what good was Jay? He was like some stoned motherfucking chimpanzee walking around dazed or something. He did what Heddy said, but he didn’t seem to have anything left behind his eyes, like he was dead already and he knew it.

Crow also didn’t really believe the cops didn’t have the back covered. They had to be out there, waiting, biding their time. Sharpshooters, no doubt, stationed behind the trees or lying in cover in the swaying tall, dead grass of the field.

When up against the wall all he knew to do was what he had to do. His whole damn life it was like that, doing what he had to do, going where he had to go, taking down who he had to take down. And now he would die, he was sure of it, the way he had to die. No return to Leavenworth for him. No more cells, guards, and self-serving bastard cons. It was no kind of life, prison, death being preferable. Besides, this time they’d ask for the death sentence and they’d get it. He was in by god Texas where they whacked a dozen death row inmates a month with lethal injections. By god Texas loved death row. They loved whacking out the killers littering their state. What was the goddamn difference if he died today or a year from today? He’d hate to see by god Texas have the privilege when he could handle it himself, today, right now.

At the back door, just before Heddy went ahead of him through it, he drew her back and into the circle of his arms. She smelled of fear-sweat. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, rubbing his face against her skin, taking her sweat onto him. He remembered briefly that it was at the back door of another house a lifetime in the past and a world away when he met her and they’d joined their fates. If he’d known it would have led him here, would he have taken her home that night?

Yeah, he expected he would have.

“We have to go,” she said, pushing him away.

The gunfire had stopped and a solemn waiting silence had settled over the house. Suddenly they both flinched as they heard the voice on the bullhorn say, “Come out. No one will shoot. Surrender now and send out the hostages first.”

Crow rummaged in his leather bag, digging deep beneath the manila envelope of money. He brought out the last of his speed, ripped over the foil and stuffed the crystals in his mouth. He tongued it from behind his molars, pushing all of it underneath his tongue where it bulged out his lower lip. It was the only time in his life he wished he had a way to shoot it straight into his veins.

“You ready?” Heddy asked.

The sunlight glittered off her sandy hair and from the surface of her mad eyes. God, Crow thought, she’s the toughest woman on earth. She’s a goddamn goddess.

“Yeah,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

He pushed her behind and went out the door first, leaping over the steps to the hard dry ground. He let out a grunt from the pain that ran up his leg from the gunshot wound there. He turned to put out his hand and just had the tips of Heddy’s fingers in his palm when he realized she was pointing her gun at his heart. “Aw, Heddy...” he said. “Aw, hell, Heddy...”

“You never should have gone to see about that woman in there, Crow. You never should have kept the money secret from me.”

She pulled the trigger and the blast hit him in the center of his chest, knocking him back onto his heels where he staggered to remain upright. He thought the sky had opened because now lightning crackled and thunder filled his body from all sides. They were shooting at him from the trees, dancing him against his will away from Heddy. He twitched and jerked with each shot that entered his body, turning round and round like a wind-up toy. He screamed in agony and called out over and over, “HeddyHeddyHeddyHEDDY...!”

But she was gone, already out of his field of vision, suffering the same pain as he somewhere on her own away from him.

Dying hurt worse than he could have imagined. It was a shitty thing to happen to a guy.

#

THE gunshots peppered Heddy’s entire front from neck to groin, sending her sprawling back onto the steps, her head lying in the open doorway.

Jay had frozen where he’d landed on the ground, shocked at Heddy’s shooting of Crow, and then mesmerized further when the shots opened from the trees that sent Crow flopping around like a downed bird. He turned back just in time to see Heddy take her first shots to the chest and then he was all motion, moving up the steps again, trying to stop what was happening by shielding her, but by the time he reached the top step she had fallen back and he was the one taking the gunfire now, stray shots meant for Heddy that bore into his back like hot drills, knocking his breath from him, knocking his life from him, knocking the world off its axis. He stumbled. He noticed the gunfire had halted again and an eerie silence filled his ears with white noise. He stared down at Heddy’s dead face before he dropped to his knees, understanding pain, understanding death, and rolled off the wooden steps to the ground, all the world turning to black.

#

FRANK stood from behind his desk and put out his cigarette butt in the overflowing ashtray. Ashes were knocked onto the desktop. He pushed aside the ashtray and raked the ashes into his hand. He said to Emily as he dropped the ashes into the trash can at the side of the desk, “I’m sorry about your father.”

Emily glanced down at her hands. She still had the rock she’d taken from the ground behind the police car. It was this nice man who had stepped into the open and, grabbing her, took her to the ground and safety. She rolled the stone over and rubbed it carefully as if it might eventually glow with magic. There was a ruby vein in the stone running through the brown that reminded her of blood.

“I’m sorry too,” she said. “He was only bad for a little while.”

The psychologist cleared his throat and moved to her chair. He held out his hand to help her rise. “I’ll have someone take you back to the hospital to see about your mother.”

“Thank you.”

“Emily?”

“Uh huh?” She slipped the rock into the pocket of her shorts.

“I think you saved your mother’s life.”

Emily started to shake her head, but she stopped. She didn’t know if it was true but it was okay that he said it. None of it mattered now. “She’s going to be all right.”

“And so are you.”

She looked up into the kindly face and smiled a little sad smile. “Yes, I will. I’ll be fine now.”

“And Emily?”

“Yessir?”

“Thanks for staying so long to tell me how it happened. We couldn’t make it out, a cop’s family held hostage that long. It would have remained a mystery without your help to get at the truth of it.”

“You don’t have to tell the newspapers, do you? About Daddy and all?”

“No, I won’t tell them. It’s for my files and no one gets to see those.”

“Good.” She walked to the door and opened it, looking back over her shoulder, pausing.

“What is it?” He asked. “Have you forgotten something?”

“No, I was just checking.” She smiled and pointed to her head. “Just checking.”

Frank smiled back, thinking That’s some kid, what a great kid that is, and she really reads minds too. Christ.

Emily listened to those last thoughts, committed them to memory, then shut the door behind her and went with the police lady who was to drive her to the hospital.

She never looked back. She never had to. Mr. Hawkins knew everything finally so she didn’t have to live with it anymore. He knew the whole story, the terrible secrets, and all the sad deaths. She had given it away, the way you do when you have a best friend you can tell everything to. Those days on their trip south were all his now and she was free at last to start life new again. Her mother would take her back home to North Carolina. They’d return home safely in an airplane. Maybe at home, where accidental chaos hardly ever reared its head and life was very seldom a thing to fear, they’d be safe again.

Safe, she thought happily. Just like they said in baseball—home safe.

THE END

Unidentified

by

Billie Sue Mosiman

Copyright 2011 by Billie Sue Mosiman

Previously published in hardcover as FINAL CUT by Five Star in the USA and as PURE AND UNCUT by Headline in England.

Question by interviewer on America Online bulletin board service: "Do you believe that cinema, the way it is defined now, has reached its full potential?"

Oliver Stone: "Not at all. Much more is coming. We have mixed media for now. I feel that 3-D media is on the way."

1

"ME: This part's a career maker and the movie's gonna go through the roof!

MOVIE STAR: Tell me about the part."

Julia Phillips, You'll Never Eat Lunch In This Town Again

They were asked to meet on the soundstage at ten o'clock Monday night. The gathering of actors and actresses, film crew, grips, makeup artists, wardrobe and lighting technicians stood milling around uneasily in small groups, talking in hushed voices.

Along with the rest of them, Georgie waited for Cambridge Hill, Hollywood's double Academy Award-winning director, to appear from his office at the back of the set. Cam was to tell the others what the movie was about. No one knew except the powerhouse agents who handled all the hottest properties. Oh, Georgie knew sort of what it was about, though he hadn't seen the script. He had to do the camera work. He couldn' tbe left out in the cold completely.

However, the agents had read the script. Film deals didn't fly unless the agents knew for sure the property wouldn't embarrass their clients. But unlike other deals before this movie, Georgie found out the agents were sworn to secrecy. Cambridge was offering more than they could comfortably turn down.

They knew how to zip their lips. This time money didn't talk. It shut the hell up.

Olivia Nyad, fresh from the wrap party for the closing of her last film, seemed the most agitated. Georgie watched her chain smoke, fascinated how one person could stand to suck in that much pollution without a break. She had filled two small clear glass ashtrays with scarlet lipstick-smeared butts. She hadn't spoken to a soul the entire half hour they had all been waiting. If anyone had asked the others present why they did not chat with Ms. Nyad, they would have said that she kept herself apart, inviolate. They might have said that she was a true star of the old school, unapproachable even to her colleagues. They would have been right.

Georgie glanced over at Marilyn Lori-Street, a comer and an exceptionally talented actress who had not really been given a chance in any film of worth. The kid smiled blissfully. She sat on a high stool, slim legs crossed to show off enough thigh to turn half the men on the set into jellyrolls. Georgie thought he shouldn't stare, but just couldn't help himself. He'd never get a chance with her, but it didn't hurt to fantasize.

Robyn LaRosa, the movie's producer and principal bankroller, stood talking quietly with one of the other cameramen, Sean Parker. Robyn stood five foot three only because she wore spiked-heel black leather boots. She could have been a fashion model for Elle or Vogue, except for her height, Georgie thought. The white bodysuit clung to all the right curves and revealed a good cleavage unsupported by any wonder bra. Her hair was a sleek red helmet cut above the ear on one side and below it on the other.

No one dared ask her about the script. She might look like a trendy gal with cream puff pastry between her ears, but it was well known she possessed the temperament of a rogue elephant.

Catherine Rivers, Cambridge's assistant director, sat cross-legged on the floor with an actor no one but Georgie recognized, Jerry Line, and another actor everyone knew, the great Jackie Landry. It was Jackie who had been cast for lead opposite Olivia. Catherine and the two men were throwing craps using a square of cardboard as a wall.

Every time Catherine crapped out she cried in a girlish voice and touched one or the other of the men on their crossed legs.

Georgie wished he could join in games like that, but crew didn't often get so chummy with the stars. At least Georgie didn't. He was too quiet, too retiring. He was, God help him, too much of a techie nerd to be given much notice by creative types.

Now it was edging into a forty-five minute wait and Olivia deliberately knocked her latest ashtray to the floor from where it had been perched on a dolly cart used for hauling around scenery.

When heads turned at the crash of glass, Georgie started. He watched her smile sweetly before she said in her famous, low-from-the-diaphragm voice, "I'm trashing this joint if Cam isn't out here in thirty seconds. Who the hell does he think he is?"

Cambridge Hill took that moment to open his office door although he couldn't have heard Olivia's threat. Yellow light spilled across the ominous darkness and he strode through it toward where they stood assembled on the raised platform stage. Georgie took a deep breath. It was about time. Nerves were stretched to the breaking point.

"Here comes the prick now," Olivia said to no one in particular, but not so loudly her words would carry to the man heading her way.

Catherine and the two actors came to their feet, dusting off their hands on their clothes. Jerry pocketed the pair of red Vegas dice; Jackie dropped the cardboard.

"Thank you for coming," Cambridge said, stepping onto the stage. He did not apologize for the late hour or the wait.

Under his right arm he carried a half-dozen bound scripts. In his left hand he held a sheaf of documents. It was this hand that caught everyone's attention. Georgie thought Cam might as well have been carrying a boa constrictor. They had all heard a rumor that this film was going to be under wraps for the duration. Could the papers he carried be rules and regulations they must follow during filming? Why else make them meet in this cavernous warehouse of a soundstage at this time of night when no one was on the lot except the security guards? He had done it before, on his last film.

Nothing surprised Georgie about Cam. He was a legend and entirely unpredictable. Some called him a genius.

Cam plopped the scripts down on a metal folding chair. He pointed to them. "These hold the first scene we're going to shoot. Those of you who will work with me on this project get one before you leave tonight."

"It's not the whole script? You're not going to give us the whole script?" Olivia blinked rapidly behind the pall of cigarette smoke. She looked as if she had just been told her agent had died, her mansion in Beverly Hills had caught fire, and her two Maltese dogs had been fed sushi crawling with salmonella bacteria.

Cambridge turned to her with a flourish. He was as dramatic a figure as anyone who stepped before a camera and enjoyed a reputation that put many of the old Hollywood moguls to shame. His black hair, receding now, but still full on the sides and back, looked as if he'd been combing his hands through it for hours. There was a shadowy day's growth of dark beard stubble on his cheeks and chin. His gray eyes settled on Olivia, piercing her the way arrows pierce a painted target.

"Baby," he said, voice like dry gravel, "it's not even a sure thing yet you'll get the first scene."

Wow, thought Georgie. Cam loves the dangerous edge.

"What is this, Cam? I don't work on pictures without seeing the script." Olivia, not easily surprised and very rarely spoken to that way, looked pissed he'd gotten to her. She dropped the cigarette butt to the stage floor and ground it beneath her shoe.

"Your agent's seen it. You'll have to trust him." Cambridge turned to the others gathered into a close knot in the center floor area. He held up the hand with the papers in it and shook them so that the pages flapped noisily. "No one's getting those scripts on that chair until you sign this nondisclosure form."

A few in the film crew muttered, but the actors looked nonplussed. They'd seen in the trades how Cam had demanded the actors and crew sign affidavits pledging secrecy on his last picture.

Cam continued, "I want anyone working with me on this to sign on the dotted line. Crew, gaffers, light directors, everyone. You're not going to get an opportunity to run off and show it to your attorneys because I've already struck deals with the agents concerned. They know what's good for you, so listen to them. Try to pry out of them the whole story plot and it's cause for dismissal. You sign tonight or you're off the film."

"Cut out the dramatics, Cam, and tell us what the nondisclosure says and why we should want to sign it." Olivia had the clout, her star shining the brightest in the Hollywood sky. She said what everyone wanted to say, but didn't have the guts to whisper aloud.

"It says you'll get the script scene by scene before it's shot. No one except Robyn, who's already seen the entire thing, of course, gets the whole script. As I mentioned, the agents involved have read over a copy and returned it. They approve. The nondisclosure also says that Robyn's production company and I will personally bring suit against anyone in this room who lets any part of the script leak to the media. Or if any of you tell your lovers, your spouses, mommas, daddies, or your hairdressers what's going on here on the closed set.

"In other words this script better not get past this room. If it does I will not only fire you and fine you, I'll prosecute your squirrelly ass." He paused and glared, eyebrows knitting together. "And you know I'll do it. This form says you agree to these terms."

"I'm not doing it." Olivia grabbed her small green alligator clutch and turned to leave the stage. Georgie knew she had read about Cam's last movie and contract deal. That one said nothing about prosecution; she knew that too. She was pulling a power play. She liked living on the edge, just like Cam.

"You know how much money you're turning down, right? Your agent told you?" Cambridge called to her back.

She turned and narrowed her eyes. Those dark, exotic, chilling eyes. "You know I don't need the money."

"What about a second Oscar? It's been almost a decade since your first. You're fading fast, Olivia."

Oh, good one, Georgie thought. Now why don't you kick her while she's down.

"Screw you, too, Cam." She paused a beat, not really giving in to the anger yet. "You're guaranteeing me an Oscar?"

Cambridge nodded. Then he said, "I'm playing you against type, Olivia. This film will go down in history. You'll be remembered forever for this part. In this film. In my film."

"I guess you want to cast me as a prostitute or something. Or maybe a space queen on Planet Zytoid. Is that it?"

"You've always played a heroine, Olivia. This time you'll excel in the role of a villain."

"Absolutely not. I positively refuse!"

Cambridge broke from where he stood holding the forms in both hands. This abrupt action startled not only Georgie, but everyone watching. Cam was across the space separating him from Olivia so fast several of the silent bystanders watching this interaction between two strong personalities gasped aloud.

When he reached Olivia where she stood her ground, challenging him, he tucked the papers under his arm and began to gesture to her in typical Italian street fashion. His voice changed and he was Al Pacino shouting at the top of his voice, "You wanna fuck with me? Huh, is that what you want? You wanna fuck with me?"

Olivia's face transformed with sudden spirited laughter. Everyone, including Georgie, joined her, startled by the inexplicable change in face, voice, and body Cambridge was able to bring about. It was as if Pacino had manifested himself in this harried-looking, potbellied, decadent director. Georgie had never seen him do that before. It was something new, something he must have practiced for a while.

"Jesus, Cam, that's good. You do that better than Pacino does that," Olivia said.

Cambridge grinned, showing the spaces between his big square teeth. "I haven't told you the best news of all yet. Stick around!"

He returned to his spot before the group and stared at each of them in turn as he spoke. "What I am about to say now is privileged information. If one of you breathes a word of this and it gets out, your ass is mine and you know I'm not kidding. You'll never work again, not only on my pictures, but anybody's. You think I don't have the clout?" He paused, shot a glance at Olivia, daring her to interrupt. "You think the agents in this town have the power and I don't? Well, let me clue you in on a little secret. I have all the top agencies behind me on this. If I can't ruin you, they will. So believe me when I say I am not kidding!"

A shudder ran through the group. Georgie reacted to a chill running up his own back. Agents did have the power to put any one of them out of business permanently. If Cam had the agents on his side, he had the power, no question.

"Come over here, Georgie." Cam gestured for him to come forward.

Georgie sauntered forward, knowing all eyes followed his passage. His leggy frame was encased in jeans so worn they had holes in the knees and seat. The latter wouldn't have been so noticeable if he hadn't been wearing flaming red shorts, but that wasn't something he cared about, what people thought of him personally. He cared about Cam. About this picture. That's all he cared about.

"Tell them," Cambridge said.

Georgie cleared his throat. He liked handling the camera; he wasn't all that fond of being the centerpiece in a group this way. He tugged on his jeans in an "aw shucks" way, felt stupid as a shit-eating puppy, and finally grinned. "We've bought the patent to a new film process. This will be the first major film of its kind, at least for distribution to theater. Have any of you been to Vegas, seen the 3-D wraparound shots at the Mirage? Or checked out the virtual reality rides at Disney World?"

A few heads bobbed, a few "Yeahs" were muttered.

"Have any of you been to a theater where there's a dome with semi-reclining seats?"

Olivia interrupted, "It's going to be 3-D? Without the glasses? Good God. A gimmick film."

"No gimmick. The story carries this one," Cambridge said, dismissing Georgie with a slight jerk of his head. Georgie moved out of the limelight, relieved to drift to the edge of the group.

Cam continued, "3-D, yeah, in a manner of speaking. But without the aid of those dumb-ass red and green cardboard glasses. And it won't be shown at just the one theater. At least one theater in every metropolitan city in this country is already being outfitted with hydraulic platforms and seat-belted seats for the audiences. Two years ago they tried out interactive films on laser discs in seventy theaters nationwide. We all know how those tickets sold like gangbusters. Those same theaters, plus the new ones built since then, will show this film. I've got studio backing on this. It's . . . needless to say, a big outlay of investment monies." He glanced over at Robyn and back again. "Screens are being expanded to wrap around the peripheral vision and heightened for overhead projected images. This film will be the first of its kind to reach mass audiences. The studio thinks it'll pay off. Robyn's partners think it will, too."

Georgie saw Olivia move past Cam to the metal folding chair. She looked tightly controlled, all erect shoulders, stone-faced with determination. She picked up one of the scripts bound in a green metallic folder and flipped over the cover.

Uh oh, Georgie thought. Here it comes, turn on the fan. Turn on a big industrial-size monster fan.

Olivia looked up at Cambridge. She spoke with a furious edge to her voice. "Pure and Uncut? Are you kidding me? This is a joke, I take it. Sounds like a film about cocaine." Cam just grinned.

Jackie Landry followed suit, taking up one of the scripts and looking at the title. He frowned, which only made him look even more handsome. He had been called the younger version of Redford and Georgie saw the resemblance. He had the same blond, wholesome, sexy good looks women swooned over. "Pure and Uncut. I like it," he said. Behind him Marilyn and Jerry snatched up copies.

"You want me to play a killer, am I getting this straight, Cam?"

Cambridge ignored Olivia and began handing out the nondisclosure forms to the film crew. "Pens are in my office if you don't have one on you."

"Cam! Talk to me, goddamn it. This is about a woman named Krystal and she's a killer? Have I got this story line scoped?"

"You got it, baby." He continued handing around the papers.

"You're gonna waste a new 3-D process on a slasher movie?" Olivia couldn't raise her voice any higher without hitting a screech.

"It's not a slasher movie. It's a suspense film. Ten leagues and a hundred million dollars beyond slasher junk, Olivia. The lead's a stalker. Think Basic Instinct, but hotter and better."

"Now I know you've sincerely lost your mind. I never thought I'd see the day. You've made films that rocked this town on its ear. But now you come up with this tripe? I'm not believing it."

It was as if a fire had been lit under Cam. Georgie saw it happening. He'd seen it before and every time it never failed to make his blood sizzle and zing. Cam whirled and suddenly he was no longer the reasonable, intelligent director or the clowning Pacino imitator. He was a ten-story flame and smoke disaster.

"Look, you stupid bitch, I can hire you or I can send you packing, but I will not keep taking shit from you all fucking night, you got that?" From the rage in his tone the people nearest him cringed back in fear.

"I'm not going to direct a Jurassic Park, hell no! I'm not going to do a sci-fi flick for special effects; that's what everyone would expect. I'm going to do this thing my way and this script is going to put me right over the top and anyone who acts in it is going over with me. I had the best screenwriters. I worked on the script myself. This has more chills than the last ten suspense films put together. You think Hitchcock made a mark? Wait until this gets finished.

"People are going to be locked into their seats, you understand that? They're going to be bolted down and swung up and down and sideways, they're going to lurch and spin forward and get jerked the hell back. They are going to live this movie. They're not going to watch it. They're going to stalk someone with Krystal. If there's a car wreck, the audience will be inside the car. If there's a sudden object flying through the air at you, the audience will see it coming straight for their faces.

"What sells in this country? I'll tell you what! Violence. It's lapped up like mother's milk. We fucking thrive on it. We've become the entertainment capital of the world, don't you know that? Not Hollywood, but our violent society. It's all the hell this country has to offer anymore. Our crime, our guns, our drugs, our sex, our music. We're into death here, that's what we're all about and if you think any differently, you're sadly mistaken.

"This film is going to give the moviegoer the chance to participate and he won't have to go to jail for it. No prison time. You think your typical movie fan wants to see another dinosaur? Another Freddy Kruger with the knife glove? Another Star Wars fight? They're sick of the buddy movies and the la-goddamn-de-da romantic comedies.

"No! I know what they want because I want it too, and you want it." He turned, jabbing a finger at Marilyn, at Robyn, at Georgie, at Jackie, and then at Olivia. "We all want it and we don't want to admit it, but it's there, that craving. We're connected to it on CNN, we export it with our troops overseas, we send it out over the airwaves. And we want it to be real. We want to feel it and wallow in it and be it."

He stopped talking abruptly and to Georgie it seemed as if at that moment the frightening truth of what Cam had just said had hit him somewhere deep where he hadn't truly understood it before.

Cam coughed, blinked, glanced around at the staring faces and he saw the same truth reflected back to him.

"Sign the contracts," he said softly, beginning to hand the papers out again. "You won't be sorry. I promise you that. If you'll trust me, you'll be a part of something so big no one will ever forget it. Just sign the goddamn contracts."

Georgie held his breath again while Olivia took the offered pages and walked slowly toward Cam's lighted office for a pen. On the way she lit a cigarette. From the back, with her squared shoulders, she might have been Joan Crawford, one of her idols. She had the screen presence of one of the old stars, the real stars. Georgie admired the hell out of her for that. It was something you couldn't buy, learn from acting classes, or imitate. You had to be born with it.

All the others, upon seeing her give in, brought pens out of pockets and purses and began to sign. Georgie borrowed Jerry Line's pen when he'd finished, then he signed too. He'd been on all Cam's films. He would have signed in blood and sold his soul to the devil to work with him again, no debate.

Cambridge laughed and lumbered over to Robyn. Georgie saw him hug her so hard she lost her footing and he had to steady her as he let go. "This is gonna be beautiful," he said, laughing.

Georgie moved closer, the nondisclosure drooping in his hands. People just mostly ignored Georgie and that helped him drift about anonymously. He might as well be a stage prop for all the attention his movements caused. Whenever Cam needed to know something, he always came to Georgie to find out the scuttlebutt. Georgie the Sponge, he called him kiddingly. Georgie, my man, my friend, the finest cameraman in the business.

And Georgie was that. He was the finest. He just happened to have the personality of a metal folding chair. Good thing he'd never had aspirations to act.

"This better be beautiful," Robyn was saying, her eyebrow quirked up in mock fierceness. "It's costing me enough. It flops, I go bankrupt."

"We have investors, don't be a prima donna."

"No one bigger than me," she said.

"No, baby, no one bigger than you, you fucking shrimp."

Robyn smiled coolly and gave him a peck on the cheek. "I love you, too, you gonorrhea goofball. Want to take me for drinks after? To celebrate?"

"I got an appointment."

"In those dives you hang out in?"

"Yeah."

"You're going to get more than gonorrhea you keep that kind of company."

"I'll watch my dick and you watch yours," he said, slapping her on the rump.

"If I had a dick," she said.

"You don't?"

Robyn smiled again, but this time with more warmth. She began to collect the signed nondisclosure forms, taking Georgie's first, giving him a little noncommittal smile. Now Cam and the production company possessed all the power over the entire crew for the duration of the filming.

Georgie had a job to do.

The movie was a go.

2

"Hollywood is a place that attracts people with massive holes in their souls."

Julia Phillips, The Times, London

In the silent dark of the room, in the center of the womb place, in this darkness thicker than any moonless, starless night, deeper than any cave or dungeon, The Body reclined.

The chair, specially built, cost a princely sum. It was made of supple leather shaped to The Body's dimensions and natural curves. When in the reclining position it held The Body's feet raised, but not so far as to make the blood rush to the brain. The arms of the chair were exactly the length of The Body's arms so that the hands reached just to the end where the fingers, from the second knuckles down, lay over the edge.

In this dark and comfortable place which The Body required, came the dreams of glory and the fantasies of retribution. In this room, it thought of itself as The Body for it was the body that dictated all responses from others, all future events and outcomes. Not a name. Not a gender. Just the shell, The Body.

It seemed now The Body had been gifted with a perfect plan for redeeming itself in the blood of one who had done it such great, irreparable harm. That was why it lay now, giving in to the darkness and taking something back from it.

Cambridge Hill had given them the script. The one script that turned itself into a plan. Had it been years, already? And it had, it had been years, without redemption, without surcease of pain. Before this there was no sure method of extracting revenge without fear, without reaping the proper benefits.

So The Body waited. Closed in the dark, soundproof, lightless room. Lying in the specially made chair. Often, when the control slipped, weeping inconsolably over loss, gripped with sorrow, wracked with frustration.

Now there was a way. A Way. To take the offender away. Away.

Into the ultimate darkness without exit.

But an exit after tremendous suffering, thought The Body. No exit before the plays are made, the scenes wrapped, the work put into the can.

A beeper sounded, reminding The Body to return to the world at hand. Without that auditory intrusion, the sensory deprivation might carry The Body off into some other dimension of madness from which it could not withdraw.

That would be unjust, to embrace true lunacy right at the moment justice appeared within reach. The Body had been tempted. Before acquiring the timer that beeped after three hours, there'd been times in the room that lasted longer than hours and longer than days, perhaps for lifetimes. And The Body lost itself, forgetting the chair, the house where the room was located, the city where the house stood, the state that held the city, the planet that twirled in the solar system.

Right on the mouth of madness The Body teetered willingly, staring down into the throat leading to eternal damnation. Many times. Tempted like an angel promised the right-hand throne next to God. Tempted as heartily as was the great Lucifer, the most beauteous of all.

I have been there and come back, The Body thought, pulling itself upright and to its feet, moving now away through the darkness, hands outstretched to grope for the door latch, the only one set into the four walls, knowing approximately where the latch might be and searching for it with fingertips that trailed along the tufted, buttoned, padded surface.

I have come back from the precipice and if I am good, if I am strong, I will not visit again until this is done.

Until my worst enemy is dead, finally, released from life, dead and done.

3

"Where is Hollywood located? Chiefly between the ears. In that part of the American brain lately vacated by God."

Erica Jong, How To Save Your Own Life

Cambridge Hill sat on a barstool between a rummy who worked as a dock loader for a concrete company and a young slut who was doing a pretty good job of putting the moves on him. Cam had drunk five beers and was feeling more maudlin than raunchy. He turned away from the slut girl, knowing that would offend her and ensure he'd go home alone, alas. But never mind, never mind.

He faced the dock loader. "Jim? That your name, right? Jim?"

"That's it. And you're Cam!"

"Stands for camera."

Jim eyed him suspiciously. "You're kidding."

Cam grinned, showing the full smile with the spaces between his teeth. "Yeah, I'm kidding. It stands for Cambridge. My parents had high hopes."

"So you disappointed them, huh?"

"You could say that. I make movies."

"Sure you do." Jim polished off his whiskey neat and gestured to the bartender for another. "Everybody in fucking L.A.'s making movies. Even my barber's writing a screenplay."

"Gonna make a stalker movie. Just signed up the actors and crew tonight."

"You're not making this up, like with the camera?"

Cam shook his head. "It's the truth. I make movies. I direct. You ever see Soldier?"

"Hell, yes! I was in Nam and that movie was right on, man. You the guy who made that? Shee-it."

"That's my movie. I was in Quang Ngai. Foot soldier, mine fodder, and I just got lucky to get out alive."

"Marines." Jim held out his hand and shook Cam's hand. "Da Nang. We're getting to be old soldiers, you know that? You ever think you'd be old? I never would have thought it. Old, man, I hate that shit."

Cam slurped up the last drops of his beer and ordered another. "So I'm doing this stalker movie," he said, bringing the subject back around to what he wanted to talk about. He often took his work into the working man's joints, checked out their responses, their ideas. Sometimes he even incorporated them into whatever film he was working on. You could do worse than listen to your audience. They knew what they liked, what moved them, what bored the fuck out of them. Cam's colleagues didn't listen to these people. They looked down on the public, feeding them what they thought they should want. Which translated to either mindless drivel or left-wing political diatribes on the latest bleeding heart subject the media helped burble to the top of the cesspool.

"Stalker movie, yeah," Jim said, focused. "Scary movie, huh?"

"Plenty scary. But see, it's a woman stalking a guy."

"Hey, that ain't so farfetched. I know a guy that happened to. He couldn't get rid of the psycho bitch. She like haunted him. Everywhere he turned, the crazy bitch was there."

"Well, that's not quite what this will be about, but close.”

“So tell me about it."

For the next hour, while the two men drank at the bar like long-lost friends, Cam laid out the plot of his movie to Jim, the dock loader. At the end of the hour both of them were well on the way to inebriation. Cam thought ole Jarhead Jim liked the movie story, but certainly it could be the whiskey talking. Still, it reassured him to have a real person say yeah, he thought it was a damn cool idea.

You couldn't depend on agents and producers and front-money men and actors to tell you if a movie would fly or not. What the fuck did they know? They made movies, they didn't know what movies they ought to be making. They had their heads so far up their asses they breathed methane. And the scriptwriters, Jesus God. One piece of lackluster crap after another came across his desk, like the writers' brains were full of sawdust.

Now that Cam had gotten one opinion—one of many to come since he'd do this again real soon—he remembered the babe and checked to see if she was still hanging around.

Shit no. She wasn't anywhere in the place. Gone home with someone else already. He'd missed his chance, not that he was going to cry about it. She had looked all right, but he wouldn't have fought the local PTA to lay her.

He scanned the crowd that had grown since he and Jim had started talking and saw a couple of possibles at a booth in the back. Lone gals, one dark and one light, sipping pink cocktails, for Christ's fucking sake, and watching for a man to give them a tumble. He thanked Jim for his time and said, "I'm going to find myself a warm body to get me laid."

"Hey, go for it, hoss. I gotta get home to my ole lady anyway before she calls up the cops."

Cam ambled across the room to the girls. So fucking what if he couldn't handle both of them in his condition. There was always tomorrow morning if they'd stay the night.

Many times he'd been fine in bed, a goddamn stallion, once the sun was up for a while. Blessed with an iron constitution, he never suffered hangovers. Come morning, he could screw the lights out of five women if he could get his hands on them.

God bless hops and malt and cool mountain water, heaven's midnight nectar. God bless the women who spread their legs when they saw him coming.

He grinned lopsidedly at the women and they smiled back. Ah, sweet conquests.

4

Hollywood: "To survive there, you need the ambition of a Latin American revolutionary, the ego of a grand opera tenor, and the physical stamina of a cow pony."

Billie Burke, Filmgoer's Companion

Karl LaRosa knew the car behind him was a tail only after he made his fourth turn, taking him from Hollywood to the freeway that led to North Malibu. Coincidence. No, he didn't believe in coincidence. You got what you worked for; you brought into your sphere what you needed; you hit on the right idea because you focused your mind in the right direction. No, this was not just some driver going his way. This was someone stuck right on his ass.

It could be anyone. An L.A. gang who wanted his car. It wasn't a new Jaguar. It was, however, a primo sports coupe, 1985. Carjackers might not know the difference.

Or the tail might be a pissed-off client. A damn nutcase. Anyone.

He put the pedal to the floor and took his chances on getting a speeding ticket. None of the thoughts he'd just had concerning the tail made him care much about having to face a cop. In fact, if whoever was behind him had mischief in mind, a cop would be a godsend.

His Jaguar pulled away from the headlights in his rearview. He slipped over two lanes to the fast lane and saw it was clear ahead. The speedometer was already rocking at ninety and slamming on. The motor hummed along like the well-kept, handmade beauty it was. He kept the car in A-1 condition mostly because he loved it, but also because of the long commute he made to and from work. He couldn't outrun a 'vette or a Ferrari, but for some reason he didn't think the tail was one of those sleek expensive jobs. The headlights were too far apart for that.

Still he could see the car behind him gaining.

His foot pressed the floorboard as if more pressure might cause the Jaguar to go faster. Now the speedometer jiggled at one hundred and the motor purred like a contented beast. The speedometer inched over, going into the red line.

He catches me, Karl thought, and plays bumper cars, we are both in serious shit here.

His speed rose another twenty miles an hour. There was a hundred and eighty on the gauge, but he'd never tried burying it and he didn't think he had the guts to try it now. The lane ahead was still clear. It was Sunday night, almost two in the morning. Good thing. If there had been heavy traffic he could never have gone so fast.

He checked the rearview and driver's side mirror. Oh man. It was really coming. The tail was just a car length back. It was coming like a train, straight for his back bumper. That would never do. The Jaguar couldn't hold the road if it got a jolt. Or rather, the Jaguar might hold, but he wasn't sure his driving skills were up to it.

He lifted his foot from the gas pedal. As the tail neared, it fell back to keep from ramming him. When the speedometer read eighty, that's when it happened.

Karl screamed just as if he thought the driver of the other car might hear him. "Hey, don't hit my car!"

Metal rapped metal as the bumpers touched, then there was a surge and Karl fought the wheel, his foot hovering, but not touching the brake. If he hit the brake it was all over. They'd both go catapulting over a side lane and into other traffic.

The lights behind him backed off. They fell back a car length, two, three. Karl slowed more, his heart bongoing in his chest in a crazy boom-boom rhythm. Despite the wind coming through his cracked open side window, he felt sweat slip down his forehead and sting his eyes.

As he watched the rearview and side mirrors, he saw the headlights swing over two lanes to an exit and leave the freeway.

"What was that all about?" he asked aloud. "What in hell was that about?"

He moved over carefully two lanes, his speed down to a normal sixty miles an hour. He realized he was breathing fast and he bet if he could see his face in the rearview mirror it would be white as driven snow.

Lucky, he thought. You're a real lucky son of a bitch, Karl LaRosa. Whoever played tag with you decided at the last moment to give it up.

Maybe it had been a drunk, a stupid drunk, his mind warped by alcohol vapors. Or someone on drugs who came to his senses just in time to avoid a horrible wreck.

Once off the freeway and driving down the quiet night streets of Malibu, Karl sighed. His workweek recently was eating up his weekends, running all the days together. Tonight he'd been locked in his office finishing up paperwork on a new client. She'd want instant results, as if the world should bow down to her whims and wishes. Most of them were like that. Now, I want it now. I can't wait, it's got to be now.

Not that he was bitter or cynical, not yet. He'd been in Hollywood since his college days and he was used to it, used to the get-it-done-by-yesterday mentality. He actually had a lot of sympathy for his clients. This was Barracuda City. It infected newcomers with such apprehension and longing that they couldn't help pushing, shoving, hurrying as if tomorrow was too late and next year, well, next year didn't even exist.

He knew how much they cared and how much they needed success. That's what made him so good. He understood the fire that burned them and so he made allowances. He had patience when others didn't. He was very good as a personal publicity manager and it was his empathy that made all the difference.

He turned into his driveway and hit the remote for the garage door. He drove inside, shut off the motor and sat a moment. He should see if the bumper was dented. Maybe it was all right . . .

Just as he grabbed up his leather zippered case of papers from the passenger seat and opened the car door, he saw something askew.

The door leading into the house was open.

It was never open. Never. It was locked until he unlocked it.

There might be someone inside still. Would he not only be nearly run down tonight, but maybe murdered by a burglar?

He glanced at his car phone. He'd look stupid if he called out someone and there was nothing wrong. Maybe he should check out the situation first. He slid out of the car quietly. He pushed the door shut just until the interior light went off, then pressed harder until the latch took. He moved softly to the door leading from the garage into the kitchen. He touched the doorknob, stood listening.

No sounds. They were gone already or they were in some part of the house where he couldn't hear them.

He peeked around the door, opened it wider, slipped inside. He had no weapon, didn't believe in guns, didn't like them. Frankly, guns scared the hell out of him. Olivia had offered him a 9mm Glock automatic from her collection, but he said thanks, no thanks, that looks like a killer to me. Now he wished he'd taken it and stashed it in the Jaguar.

Maybe he should just get back in the car and call the cops. That's what a smart homeowner would do.

No, he was already inside now and there were no voices, no secretive sounds of movement. He couldn't detect the presence of another human.

He halted and took stock. The light over the stove was on as he had left it. No one here. No problem here. Nothing seemed out of place. He hadn't known he'd been holding his breath, expecting to see disaster, until now that the air rushed out of him all in a whoosh.

He turned to the door leading to the living room. Lamp on in there. He didn't leave lights on in the rest of the house, only the light over the stove. So someone had left it on. He was almost certain the intruder was gone. The house felt forlorn and empty the way it always did when he first entered.

His footsteps on the tiled kitchen floor rung through the room and no one came running, brandishing a handgun in his face.

He worked up spit enough to call out in a cranky, scared voice, "Anybody in there?"

He paused, listening hard. Nothing. They were gone. He or she was gone. "They're gone, Karl, catch your heart and slow it down." Admonishing himself this way did the trick. Almost. He calmed, was suddenly afraid again when his footsteps creaked over a low board in the wood floor. He couldn't help his irrational fear, but it made him angry, too. Would Lee Marvin or Robert Mitchum be this scared? Would John Wayne? Hell no.

He straightened up. Glanced around the living room and saw nothing at all disturbed. Everything lay and sat just as he'd left it. His coffee mug on the glass dining table near the far wall of windows. His reading glasses he kept at home, just as he'd placed them that morning on the latest copy of Variety on the coffee table. Nothing missing that he could tell. There sat the big CD player unit, the television and VCR, even the Oscar his father had won in the forties for Best Supporting. Hell, if this was a burglary, they'd have surely taken Oscar. No one in the universe would break in and leave behind the gold-plated statue.

Perplexing. Why break in if they didn't want to steal something?

The hair tingled at the back of his neck. He swallowed and it hurt, like the muscles in his neck were tight as newly strung fence wire.

It was something else. Whoever had been here wasn't interested in stealing his things. Whoever it was hadn't been looking for anything special. Then what . . . ?

He hurried now, dropping his leather case to the sofa, running through the room to his bedroom. He didn't know what he expected. A couple of teenagers lying startled and naked on his bed, caught in their illicit guilt. Or a dead body lying across the mattress, throat cut. Or . . . just anything but the soft light twinkling from the bedside lamp and the small, folded note lying on his pillow. He didn't expect that at all.

He straightened again, found that he'd been moving in a crouch, like some kind of animal going to ground and ready to spring. His fists were balled. He opened his hands now, flexing the fingers, and, after looking around the room quickly for signs of anything out of place but finding nothing, he moved to the unmade bed. He stared at the paper on his pillow without touching it. It was a sheet of cream stationery folded in half. His name, KARL, was printed in block letters with black ink.

He picked it up finally and flipped up the paper to read.

Dear Karl, dearie, dear heart, my love.

Karl could hardly force himself to read further. So far the words made no sense to him. He could not imagine who might have written them or why.

He read on.

I hope you can find a way to forgive me for intruding into your privacy. I can't tell you how I got in. I might want to come again, you see. Don't bother to change the locks, by the way. It won't stop me.

I've missed you every single day, hour and minute we've been apart. If you'd only give me one more chance I would do anything. You know I'd lay down my life for you.

The one thing I can't do is give you up.

I love you too much to ever give you up.

Karl's gaze rose from the end of the page where there were Xs and Os in the place of a signature. Xs and Os, like a lovesick kid would put at the end of a love letter.

He sank onto the side of the mattress and read over the note again. And a third time, his brow furrowing, his mind turning and tumbling, trying to decipher from the printed letters or the words who might have written them.

He refolded the note and closed his eyes.

He had a real problem.

Any one of several women might have written it, he admitted. He did not think himself promiscuous, but he certainly had had his share of relationships. Too many of his affairs ended in recrimination and long sorrow; that's the way it was out here with all the competition and the passion that sometimes got displaced onto people like him who helped a novice become a pro. He told them—didn't he tell them?—not to get serious, no commitment, please, let's not become too fond of our arrangements; it's not you, it's me. I'm not sure I'll ever be ready for another lengthy relationship. My marriage going on the rocks took away my hankering for all that.

Olivia might have written this note.

Or Marilyn.

Maybe his ex-wife, Robyn.

Or Catherine.

Fury at how the note-writer had included the thinly veiled threat "don't bother to change the locks"—overrode his wonder at who it might be.

He stood, flinging the note to the floor. He went through the house checking all the window locks and made sure the kitchen door from the garage was locked. Then he put a chair beneath the doorknobs on the front, garage, and back doors.

No one was coming in while he was here. He'd make damn sure of that! So what if it made him look like a scared little sissy pants. He wasn't going to bed without the doors secure.

When he'd finished, he returned to the bedroom and undressed. He hastily brushed his teeth, yawned widely at his reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror, and didn't remember the note until he crossed the carpet barefoot for bed. He stepped on it, creasing one corner of the folded stationery. He stooped, picked it up and dropped it into the trashcan next to the bedside table.

"To hell with it," he muttered.

He wondered if the Jaguar bumper was damaged as he crawled between the sheets, and was about to worry about who had gotten into his home to write the note, but the deep tiredness in his bones slithered throughout his body as he settled into bed. He fell into sleep as if he were diving through a wave and being lost in an undertow.

Dead to the world and any danger it might hold.

5

"Insecurity, commonly regarded as a weakness in normal people, is the basic tool of the actor's trade."

Miranda Richardson, The Guardian, London

Cam forced Jackie Landry to redo the shot where he entered the house and found the note on his pillow.

"Cut!"

This was the ninth take. He'd gone through this nine times and had been screamed at nine times. He now rubbed down his face with both hands, refreshing himself. Immediately the girl from makeup rushed over and patted him down with powder so his skin wouldn't shine from the lights. He always forgot and she always had to run over.

"Listen." Cam came right up to Landry on the set, but he was still shouting loud enough for his rant to carry clear across the room. "You don't look scared to me. If you don't look freaked out, this scene doesn't work, I keep telling you that. What's the matter, you didn't get enough sleep, you didn't get laid, what the hell's the matter with you?"

Jackie knew not to talk back. "Let me try it again."

"You're fucking right we're trying it again. Remember? You just got off the freeway and could have been killed. Your heart's already beating like crazy when you drive into the garage. You see the door open. Somebody might be inside. They might have a goddamned Uzi in there, or at least a .45. If you want to ever break to eat lunch, you have to get this right. Now show me scared."

He walked off, turned, walked back again. "You've never been in the service, I know that, but have you ever in your life been in jeopardy? Ever been in danger?"

Jackie, at a loss and feeling horribly harangued, hung his head and mumbled, "I fell off my brother's roof once.”

“You what?"

"I fell off a roof. That was pretty scary. I slipped going up after a kite, broke my arm in two places."

Cam threw up his hands and stalked off. "He fell off a fucking roof and broke his arm."

Jackie, chastised, was now in the proper mood. Cam scared the shit out of him. He never knew if he was going to yell at him or sock him in the nose. If he had to retake it again, Cam was going to slug him, he just knew it. And if that happened, he'd hit him back. He wouldn't want to; he knew if he did he'd be off the picture, but no one laid a hand on him without getting twice as much in return.

"Quiet on the set!"

Jackie focused on the garage door. When the cameras were rolling, he walked to it in trepidation. This time the shoot went smoothly. Cam yelled, "Cut!" after Jackie flopped on the bed, pulling the covers over his naked legs, his eyes falling closed on the close-up. Jackie struggled up from the mattress.

"That was great. That wasn't spectacular, but it was great. See, all it takes is acting."

Jackie glanced over at Olivia Nyad as the wardrobe person, Betty Ann, handed him a robe to slip over his jockey shorts. He never wore jockeys. He preferred boxers. His privates had shriveled up like a bunch of raisins with everyone watching him fail over and over to get the scene right. Olivia grinned.

"I don't think it's so funny," he said.

"Honey, trying to get you to look frightened is like trying to put a frown on Fabio. You're too handsome for your own good."

He tried to smile. It was a half-assed compliment, but it was a compliment nevertheless and he needed one just then. "I've never worked with Cam before," he said by way of explanation. Or maybe it was an apology.

"After you work with him this time, you won't work with him again either."

"Why not?"

"Because he eats actors alive. By the end of this film, you'll be shark bait."

Again Jackie sighed. Olivia was probably right. He had heard every actor ought to do one film with Cam, but only one. Many claimed that's all it took to learn the most important lessons about why they became actors in the first place. You found out if you loved the work enough to take that much abuse.

"You haven't worked with him before either, have you?”

“Never had the pleasure."

"He always yell like that?"

"Mostly. It's his method."

He gave her a puzzled look.

"You know. Some of them cajole, some fall in love with us, some are reasonable and depend on appealing to the intellect. But Cam, he's temperamental and that's how he gets his way."

"He's manipulative."

She laughed. "Don't say that so he can hear you. Even though you're right."

Robyn strolled by and tossed off, "Good work, Jackie." He watched her sashay past, his gaze riveted on her ass in the tight white slacks. Robyn was one of the few people in show business who came on a set in tight clothes. Most people wore whatever was comfortable. Sometimes they had to stay eighteen hours and tight clothes could hurt you. But not Robyn. She lived up to her model-like beauty, always showing it off.

"Want some of that?" Olivia asked.

She talked like a guy, which embarrassed Jackie for her sake. "She's so tiny."

"So was Napoleon."

He laughed and the bundle of tension putting a cramp in the back of his neck fled. Olivia might talk like a man in a locker room, but she was so clever it didn't seem to matter to him now. The damn scene was over. He'd gotten through it. But there were a lot more like it to come. He didn't want to think about that just yet. He was a little afraid audiences would think him a pussy all the way through this movie, if he had to be so scared all the time. It wasn't exactly the role of hero he was getting to play here. Maybe something good was coming up in the scenes they hadn't seen yet. Surely he didn't have to go around like a frightened geek through the whole movie. He fervently hoped.

He saw Olivia still watching him. His thoughts slipped out. "We're all nuts to be doing this without knowing the plot."

"We know it. I'm the stalker, you're the stalkee. What's to know?"

"I think it's going to be more than that."

She shrugged and lit a new cigarette. "I can handle it, whatever it is."

She would, too. She'd steal this movie away if he didn't watch out. They were going to share top billing, but given the chance, Olivia Nyad would whittle him down to a nub. He'd be her shadow. Hell, he already was. There had been no Oscar nominations for him.

The fleeting thought that being in a Hill movie might garner him one made gooseflesh break out on his naked legs and arms.

"You can't get your agent to tell you anything about the script?" he asked.

She shook her head. "To tell you the truth, I'm still trying. No luck yet." She rose to join him where he stood on the set. "Want to go get something to eat?"

"Sure, let me change." He knew she watched him walk away. Many men by nature were lecherous creatures. Olivia was the first female he'd met. He wondered what she'd be like in bed. A filthy talker probably, like some bad starlet in a low-budget porno flick. Fuck me, she'd say. Do me hard. Eat me, baby.

He grinned to himself.

He knew, if he played his cards right, he'd get to find out if he was right. Then maybe if she could weasel any information from her agent about the script, she'd tell him. It was worth a try. He hated working in the dark this way.

6

"Hollywood has always been a cage . . . a cage to catch our dreams."

John Huston, Sunday Times, London

When not immersed in the details of the next day's shooting script, The Body took care of all the necessary tasks to stay healthy. There was food to prepare and consume. Exercises to perform until the sweat rolled down the forehead in rivulets. A shower, preferably cold as ice, for the shock value to the system.

With all of that out of the way, The Body either sat in the dark isolation of the sensory deprivation room or went to the computer and typed out the sadness of a lonely life into a file of the word processor. It was a stream-of-consciousness activity that helped soothe the mind after a day on the set. The Body now typed, fast and sure, but without capital letters and sometimes without punctuation, thoughts running together the way they did inside a confused brain.

—inside Karl's house it was like trespassing but not enough to scare me. he might put in a security system. all the other Malibu bigshots have security systems. but i can get past anything he puts in. i've been studying electronics. i've been studying a lot of things. what else do i have to do with my time, but study. i could go crazy if i didn't keep my mind trained on the future. there was no future inside karl's house. it was spotlessly clean and too neat except for the bed, he didn't make the bed.

last night i was in her house and it was clean too and i was worried for a minute the live-in maid had heard me enter, but no one came to check. C. was sleeping beside her husband. i'll only go in when she's sleeping. to watch her. to watch her and hate her. she'll never know i was there. i am a phantom. there is invisibility for people me—

The Body stretched, sitting straighter in the desk chair. Thirsty. Should have brought my glass of wine from dinner, The Body thought, rising from the computer.

The room was dark, save for a blue glow from the computer monitor. The Body passed near the mobile hanging over the crib and paused to give it a little swing. Mickey and Minnie Mouse and Goofy went swimming around in a circle in the air above the empty crib.

The Body found the wine bottle and poured a slug of it, filling the wine glass that sat next to the sink. At the door of the room where the computer sat, The Body flicked on the overhead light.

No more shadows. No more darkness. Away with it! Be gone, darkness and lies!

The stuffed toys arranged along the wall shelves. The white crib and the Disney-character mobile hanging now still above it. The child's bright rug on the wood floor, a series of alphabet blocks decorating the expensive fabric.

The computer stood on the white matching desk against the wall opposite the crib, the ramblings there not altogether coherent to anyone but the author.

The Body's eyes closed and the hand holding the wine glass trembled.

This room would never be put to good use. The bed, the toys, all of it a ghostly setting for The Body to save thoughts on a computer's disk. Most of the time the room was a haven and kept The Body from feeling so alone. But tonight . . . tonight it just made The Body lonelier than ever.

The light went out.

The Body left the computer monitor on and went to bed. The full glass of untouched wine sat sweating and warming on draining board.

Tomorrow Cam would give them another set of pages from the script. The Body would then have something to do besides languish in this cage they called Hollywood.

7

"I fucking hated school. I was left back, so I was, like, sixteen in ninth grade. I wouldn't even make the effort to just keep up with it, to do the little bit of work that I needed to do to get by. I wanted to be an actor."

Quentin Tarantino, Premiere

Olivia Nyad sat in a white velvet chair across from her secretary, Janet Grenda, in the sitting area of her bedroom. Jan had been with her for ten years and saved her ass more times than Olivia liked to count. Once in a while she thought she saw a hint of disgust, as she did right now in Jan's eyes. If she really believed what she saw, she would have fired her on the spot. But she might be imagining it. It was too hard to find someone you could trust. She didn't really want to go in search of another personal secretary. How often could you find a confidante in Hollywood who would keep her mouth closed?

"Brad's not going to tell you," Jan said. "You can't push him too far."

"That bastard! I've made more money for him than fifteen of his other clients put together. He owes me." Olivia pulled her peach silk negligee closed over her bosom as if shielding herself from invisible attack.

She could see outside double leaded-glass windows. In the blue wash from the neighborhood streetlights and the rising moon, palm fronds swayed gently in a breeze. Shadows from the palms danced over the softly lighted swimming pool and the terrazzo deck surrounding it. She hated swimming. The pool came with the house.

"Cam made them promise not to tell." Jan had that pleading look, the one she used on Olivia whenever it appeared things were about to get out of hand.

"That fucking Cam." Then Olivia smiled. "I love the hell out of him. Who would have put me in this part, but him?"

"You see? There's a lot to be grateful for. If you can't get Brad to tell you about the script, at least you've got the best part in the film."

"Film!" Olivia spat the word, making it sound like something nasty. "That's what Cam does—films. Know what he said in an interview about Quentin?"

"I can't imagine." Jan shifted the valise of papers on her lap. Fan letters, attorneys' inquiries, stock option reports.

"He said Quentin does movies, which is a far different thing from making films. He insulted him right there in print. One director bitching out another before God and everybody. That's what I love about this town; it eats its young."

Jan smiled at this, agreeing silently. She sat waiting patiently. Olivia knew she was eager to get on with the day's work that sat on her lap, but she'd listen for as long as required. It was part of the job. There were other considerations, too. They had recently slept together, just to get it out of the way. It took years to be honest about the sexual attraction between them and they both thought they should do it and see what happened. Now Olivia only turned to Jan for physical affection if she couldn't find a willing male, but Jan hadn't an ounce of jealousy in her. Sometimes, though she couldn't prove it and didn't possess any real evidence other than the finger-walking creepy feeling up her back, Olivia suspected the other woman of watching when there was a man in her bed.

Which, if it were true, was a turn on.

"So you don't think Brad can be pried open?" she asked Jan again, thinking of the script and wishing, wishing, wishing, she could see the whole thing, all the scenes.

"Not even if you blow him."

Olivia laughed. "That's what I like about you, Jan, how you come right out with my deepest thoughts and most desperate plans." Jan knew she did not find her agent attractive. He wore his gut like a fat belly belt made of diamonds.

Olivia gestured to the valise. "What do I have to sign tonight?" She was tired from the shooting and tomorrow, at dawn, they were going on location again, "somewhere out in L.A." Cam had told them, enjoying the mystery, getting a kick out of keeping them ignorant of the shooting schedule.

Jan had graduated from the University of Iowa in business administration. She'd married an actor wannabe who hauled her off to Hollywood, then promptly dumped her. Olivia had met her at one of the ex-husband's amateur plays where Olivia had gone to pick up another friend, a new, hot producer of teen ghoul movies. They had invited Jan to dinner afterward and hearing of her woes, Olivia had asked if she'd like to handle some personal business. She'd hired her within the month when it was clear the woman was a true find. Honest, hardworking, and most of all, loyal.

Jan shuffled through the papers, telling Olivia what was there and what she was supposed to do with it. Without Jan, Olivia would have had to hire four or five knowledgeable business people to advise her. Like the hot director, Quentin Tarantino, whose "movies" were muscling in on Cam's "film" reputation, Olivia had not gone beyond the ninth grade in school. She couldn't spell, she didn't know how to protect herself from the hounding of fans, and she had to depend on Jan to make sure she kept part of her earnings put away in the stock market for a rainy day.

Sure, she had an accountant, two attorneys, a business manager, an investment counselor—a retinue of handsomely paid guard dogs handling her career and income, but it was Jan who was the pipeline. They all moved the paper through her to save Olivia the trouble of meeting with ten different people.

For the next half hour Olivia half listened to Jan summarizing the paperwork while quickly signing sheet after sheet and studio publicity photos to send off to her fan club president to distribute to the fans who wrote asking for a picture of the star.

When finished, she shook her wrist to get out the cramp. "While I'm working on Pure," she said, referring to Cam's film, "maybe we can do this once a week instead of every night. It tires me out too much."

Jan looked doubtful. "It'll pile up. It'll take you longer to catch up."

"I don't give a damn. I can't be bothered with this stuff all the time. Don't nag me."

"Whatever you say. We'll make it once a week, then."

The telephone rang. Jan rose, folding closed the valise and setting it aside in the chair she vacated. She answered, looking over at Olivia. She said, "Hold on, let me check."

"Who?" Olivia asked. "It's late." It was eight PM. She would be asleep by nine. It had been some years since she could stay up partying all night and still do any kind of decent job on a set the next day.

Jan covered the receiver with one hand. "Karl. He says it's important."

"Gimme." Olivia held out her hand for the receiver. She always had time for Karl LaRosa. Jan scooped up the valise in her arms and left the bedroom for her office on the other side of the house where she'd sort through the papers for the next day's mail.

"Hi, baby!" Olivia's face brightened in anticipation.

"Olivia, I'm sorry to bother you, but I have to know something. Did you get in my house and leave me a note?"

Olivia glanced at the door closing behind Jan. "Why would I do a thing like that?"

"Someone did. You gave me back the key, didn't you?"

He meant the key to his place. They'd had a brilliant affair, so lusty and brawling it made her wet to remember. She had been hoping when he called that he wanted to renew their relationship and here he was asking if she still had the key. Steel slipped into her voice though she tried not to let it happen. How dare he?

"I gave it back, Karl. I don't have your fucking key. I wouldn't go into your house and leave you a note. If I wanted to leave you a note, I'd nail it to your goddamn forehead."

"Don't get that way, I just asked. I had some trouble last night and . . ."

"Well, I'm not the trouble you had and I'm pissed off you called me up thinking I was. Now I have to hang up. I'm shooting early in the morning."

"Olivia? Calm down, I didn't mean it that way."

"Fuck off, baby." Olivia slammed down the receiver, shaking all over in a sudden fury. She stood and the negligee fell open just as she caught sight of her reflection in the full-length mahogany mirror that stood in the corner. Her breasts needed some new work. Her neck . . . goddamnit . . . was already sagging again. She should have seen her surgeon before she took the part on Cam's movie. Those wrinkles in her neck might show up if they didn't get the lighting right. Fuck!

She tried to get hold of herself. If she let anger take over, she'd never get to sleep. She'd look like shit tomorrow. Everyone would notice.

She wished she had invited Jackie home with her tonight. A roll in the hay would have relaxed her. He was younger, of course he was. She didn't like to remember, but half of Hollywood was younger than Olivia Nyad. Although that had never mattered.

She pushed the intercom button on the wall and said to Jan, "You get in that shipment?"

"Sure. It came by courier yesterday."

"In my box? You put it in there?"

"Yes."

Olivia shut off the intercom and crossed the big, open room to her bedside table where the Goodie Box sat. It was an Indian-made box, a foot square, inlaid with mother of pearl and exotic woods. Inside she found the new stuff. Pills, the colors of the rainbow. She fondled the packages and felt her heart rate diminish to a manageable pace. No one could tell her this was bad for her. They were wrong. Without a little chemical help, life was too raw to live. She found the plastic baggy she wanted and reached inside for two little white tablets.

She closed the box and walked into the adjoining bathroom for a glass of water.

Now she'd sleep despite Karl's phone call and the new regret he had stirred in her. That son of a bitch.

8

"People in Hollywood are always donating money to politics and causes. As if to expiate the sin of getting too rich and too famous too fast."

Julia Phillips,You'll Never Eat Lunch In This Town Again

Robyn LaRosa wrote out a check for one thousand dollars and handed it to B.B. Bernie Bardacelli who owned one of L.A.'s most stylish night clubs, the Universe, but his heart was in the redwood forest he came from on the Olympia peninsula. He hit his regular customers for donations to national parks, Greenpeace, whatever organization caught his fancy that week. This was the third such donation Robyn had made in a year.

"If that isn't enough, don't tell me," she said, flashing B.B. a grin.

"Yeah, I saw in the trades you sunk your money in one of Cam's projects." People jostled them, packing into the club. It was a Thursday night, but the Universe never had slow nights. Anyone who was anyone wanted to be seen there. From where they stood, Robyn spotted Travolta, girls hanging off him, and in another group, Wesley Snipes with his agent.

"It's going to make me enough profit to buy my own island if I want. You should have invested in it."

B.B. stuffed the check in his coat pocket. "If you'd marry me, I'd buy you an island. Which one you want? Cayman? Maui?"

Robyn snuggled up to B.B.'s huge chest. She ran long red nails down the front of his white starched shirt. "B.B., I'd wear you out in a week flat. You need to get in shape, you want me."

His laugh was deep and bear-like. He hugged her, then excused himself to handle club business. "I don't watch these guys, they rip me off, fucking gonzo motherfuckers."

Robyn doubted that. No one would screw over B.B., not even a bartender. He had been connected in Seattle and made enough from a string of espresso shops to move down into L.A. and open the Universe. If his size didn't scare you, his friends up in Washington state would.

Robyn looked around. She had to shove off, find a man. She was on the first level. The Universe was really three clubs in one. B.B. had gotten, as in stolen, the idea from a hot Atlanta club. The lower level was Hell. Down here were the heavy metal and punk rock bands. You couldn't hear yourself think. Not that people who came to drink, find bed partners, and gyrate to high-decibel music wanted to think.

Upstairs, on the second level, was Purgatory. Robyn didn't like that room. Country and western music was all the rage—dance instructors had made a killing off Californians giving lessons in the Cotton-eyed Joe and the cowboy twostep—but it sounded like twangy shit to her.

At the top, on the third level, was Heaven. That's where she headed now, threading her way up the wide carpeted stairs. All the new music was played in Heaven. Alternative. Smooth beat and singers with voices like honey.

Two men waylaid her on the way up, but they weren't her type. She knew she kept looking for another Karl, hunting his replacement, and hated herself for it but what could you do. They hadn't had a good marriage, but she kept looking for him in every man she met anyway, like she was programmed or maybe ruined for other men. It was sickening. Hell, she hadn't even taken back her maiden name. She had been LaRosa for seven years and figured there was no point in changing it. During those seven years she'd made all her connections in Hollywood and Burbank. People knew her, remembered her, as Robyn LaRosa. So now that's who she was.

A frail, dark-haired girl was on the stage in Heaven, strumming a guitar and backed by a small combo. Robyn found an open stool at the bar and ordered vodka over ice. She wouldn't look around. Someone would spot her any minute. She knew how good she looked. "Like a doll," Karl used to say. She could pass for twenty-five, though she was ten years older than that. Ten years and ten months, to be precise. It was all due to bone structure, a personal masseur, salad bars and infrequent visits to health farms, but what the hell, wasn't it always?

She felt warm man flesh next to her bare arm and smelled the scent of a familiar spicy cologne just as her drink was served. She kept her gaze forward and said, "Hello. Yes, I'm alone. Yes, I want company. No, I can't give out my number until we have a few dances and drinks."

"I know."

"Karl!" She turned too fast and slopped her drink over the bar. "Jesus, what are you doing here?"

"Looking for you. How have you been, Robyn?" He leaned over and kissed her lightly on the lips.

She frowned. "I'm fine, Karl, but you could have found that out by picking up the phone. Not that you do that anymore. What's up? This isn't your kind of place."

"B.B.'s a friend of mine, too. We still have friends in common."

"But this isn't your kind of place," she repeated, undaunted. "What do you want?"

"Why do you have to be so hard?" He looked a little sad and disappointed. And nervous. Why was he nervous?

"I think we've had this conversation before. If I wasn't such a bitch, if I wasn't such a ballbreaker, if I wasn't so hard, you might have loved me more."

Karl winced and looked away into the crowd on the dance floor. "I still love you."

"Like hell."

He looked back at her and she felt her color rising. Every time she got around Karl, she got mad. He was her one failure. She had succeeded in everything but marriage, and it was like a canker, festering. It never went away, her failure to make him love her just the way she was. She couldn't have changed! Where would she be now if she'd been easy and good and sweet and . . . lovable?

"You still hate me, though, don't you?" he asked. He sipped a beer and stared right into her eyes.

She sighed and turned back to face the bar. "I don't hate you, Karl. I hate myself for fucking up, that's all."

"Have you been out to Malibu?"

She blinked, but didn't turn to him. "I live up in the hills, you know that."

"Someone got into my house, Robyn. Left me a note. Before that, someone tried to run me off the freeway."

She turned her head. Saw he wasn't kidding. Then her anger returned and her cheeks felt hot as griddles. "You think it was me?"

"You have a set of keys still, don't you?"

"You're accusing me of letting myself into the house and—what?—leaving some kind of note? You think I tried to run you off the road? Karl, how much have you had to drink? I don't give a flying fuck about going back in that house. I couldn't fucking care less about writing you any notes!"

He glanced at the dancers again. "I called Sheinberg today and he put off our meeting. He's never done that before."

Robyn looked puzzled. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"And two of my newest clients called up to say they thought they wanted to think over signing with me."

"Wait." Robyn turned full around on the stool and took his arm. "You're trying to tell me something, but I think I'm missing exactly what it is. What in hell are you talking about?"

"I've got a bad feeling, Robyn. Someone's messing with my life and I . . . Well, I don't know who it is."

"It's someone who knows you," she said. "So you thought . . ."

"It's not you, is it, Robyn?" He put his beer on the bar and took her in his arms. He said against her ear, "Don't let it be you. Please. I meant what I said. I still love you."

Robyn felt her heart contract and her vision blur. Goddamnit, why wasn't it true? He thought he still loved her, but he never had, not really, not the kind of love that forgives faults and overlooks weaknesses. "It's not me," she said, weakly, her voice catching.

He pulled away abruptly. "I have to go."

"Don't. Can't you stay just a little . . ."

"I'm sorry, I really have to leave. I've got some stuff to do at the office before I can go home."

She watched him as he started down the stairs to Purgatory.

"Fuck," she whispered.

"Now?" someone asked from behind her. "Here?"

"What?" She turned to face a thin young man dressed in a loose brown jacket, sleeves rolled to the elbow. His hair was blond, his jaw shaded with a fine gold beard.

She smiled, at ease, her thoughts of Karl replaced with thoughts of her big king-size bed with this young man reclining naked on it. "Hi," she said. "I'm Robyn."

"Yes, you are," he said, moving into her sphere, an arm circling her small waist as he guided her out to the dance floor. "Robyn LaRosa. I've seen you around. You produce pictures. I know your credits."

"And you have a script you're shopping," she said, laughing at how he wasn't trying to hide his motivations. How refreshing.

"One or two," he said. "But they can wait."

She slipped into his embrace on the dance floor and closed her mind to everything but the music and the yearning building in her body. She'd always had a thing for writers, especially the brave, pretty ones.

9

"They love the scenes where people are running, screaming, naked through the halls. But they might just hate themselves for liking them. This is no new process; it's obvious that there is a vicarious thrill involved in seeing the forbidden."

David Cronenberg

There was a concerted effort to hurt him and hurt him bad. But why?

Karl stood just outside his office in Burbank with his employees. They looked like a group of shellshock victims—confused, angry, and more than a little afraid. They stared at him as if he might wave a magic wand and make the whole mess disappear. He was the boss, after all, he could fix this, couldn't he? Harry, his media man, said, "Brace yourself, Karl."

Karl pushed open the cracked and splintered door with his fingertips. He stood just over the threshold looking at the detritus left by a mind deranged.

He winced, sucked in his breath. He looked over his shoulder. "Have you called the police like I told you?"

His secretary, Lois, nodded her head in a jerky way. She had tears in her eyes. One of her best charcoal suits she favored for work had a streak of blood down the front of the skirt.

"I guess they'll be here soon. Did anyone touch anything?"

Harry said, "We just looked in. We haven't touched a thing. This is how we found it. And the security alarm wasn't on. Someone disabled it first."

As if they would or could go in and touch stuff, thought Karl. The place was covered with blood. It looked like someone had slaughtered a hog in the outer office. The upholstered sofa and deep cushioned chairs were slimed and wet with blood. The walls looked as if buckets of blood had been thrown at them. Great splashes shocked the wall and dripped long red teardrops toward the carpet. Lois' desk was slick, her computer terminal covered, the telephone sitting in a puddle of coagulated scarlet.

"Why would anyone . . . ?" Lois began, letting the question trail away.

"I've been having some trouble," Karl said. "My house. Someone trailing me on the freeway. Now this."

A patrol car pulled to the curb and Karl's people moved aside to let a uniformed officer pass. Karl spent the next hour sitting in the car with one of Burbank's finest answering questions. He detailed the other strange happenings recently. It was all dutifully recorded, the officer shaking his head. "We'll get a team out here to look for fingerprints. Breaking into your house and leaving a note is one thing, but trying to run you off the road and this—" his head tipped toward the sidewalk and the office—"this is enough to get an investigation started. It looks like you have someone serious on your case, Mr. LaRosa. We'll want a list of names of women you've gone out with for the last couple of years."

Karl rubbed the flesh over the ridge of his nose. "I've been checking with some of the women I dated. I can't rule out anyone, but I just can't see anyone I ever cared about doing this to me."

"People go off their nut. I've seen enough craziness to tell you plenty of people you'd think were straight as an arrow sometimes do things you'd think only a madman would do."

Karl sent his people home. He told them he'd call when the scene was checked out and he could get a cleaning crew in. They hugged him. They shook his hand. They patted his shoulder, and Lois gave him a little chaste kiss on the cheek. She was crying when she did it and he told her, "C'mon, no one got hurt, that's what matters. It'll be all right."

But he wasn't sure he believed that. He didn't expect the cops to find any fingerprints or evidence. The person who did this was too smart for making dumb mistakes like that.

Driving home again, calling from his car phone to reschedule appointments with clients, his fury began to grow. The shock was wearing off and the more phone calls he had to make, the angrier he got. It was one thing to slip into his house, but to wreck his office and scare his people—that was just about enough. Who the hell hated him that much?

On his last phone call he had to cut it short. His voice was getting too hard and the client thought he had done something wrong and Karl was upset with him. "Gotta go," he said. "I'll have Lois call you for a new time, okay?"

He punched off the phone and used it to bang against his right thigh as he drove one-handed. The investigating detective said he'd call his home when they were through at the Burbank office. Karl had to get hold of some outfit who could rip out the carpets and put in new, clean and paint the walls, replace the sofa and chairs . . .

"I'll get you, you piece of shit!" he yelled out loud. A driver in a Volkswagen in the next lane glanced over at him, probably hearing the shout, but not the actual words, frowned and dropped back a car length.

10

"I know what it is to feel lonely and helpless and to have the whole world against me, and those are things that no men or women ought to feel."

Richard Hannay in The 39 Steps

Cam watched the dailies with a weary sense of satisfaction. Getting Olivia through the scene where she had to haul the animal blood from the trunk of her car and splash it all over the office set was hell. She balked, complaining about using real blood. He'd had to threaten to replace her if she didn't do the goddamn scene and do it now. Didn't she know he couldn't use fake blood and get anything out of the scene? The actors kept forgetting this film was going to be shown through a new process and that the audience would spot fakery right off.

Then Jackie. That fucking half-wit overrated moron! He'd had to do eighteen takes before he got the scene in the car right. His voice wouldn't work. Just wouldn't work. He sounded like a dispassionate stockbroker calling his clients, not a Hollywood personal manager trying to control his dread when he talked to them about a "little problem at the office" that meant they had to change their appointments.

Maybe Cam had made a bad decision hiring Jackie Landry for the male lead. The man had done some good films, but they were lightweight. He was extremely handsome so he'd done a few romantic comedies and some dramas where not much was asked of his acting abilities. Cam thought he saw in Landry a spark of something that he could draw out on screen. A wildness the actor had never tapped before. There had been an early film starring Landry where he played a petty criminal type and he'd almost walked right over the line of acting the part into doing something honest.

Cam thought for sure he could push and prod Landry into giving that one superlative performance he'd detected lurking in the man in that early film.

But so far it was a washout. The man was stiff as starched Navy whites. The more Cam yelled at him, the more he bottled up and froze.

Still, the scene today hadn't gone so badly. It had taken them fourteen hours, but by God, they'd delivered what he wanted.

Maybe he could have a private talk with Landry before a scene where he would have to do anything really outstanding. Or he could pull that trick he'd done with Newman. Just walk off the set and leave him on his own. See if he'd perform when he wasn't under Cam's watchful eye. Knowing if he didn't, he'd not only disappoint his director, but the whole damn cast.

Cam shut off the machine and left the editing room. It was almost one in the morning, but he could still find a joint open where he could get a beer and a willing ear. How anyone shot a film without blowing steam was beyond him.

Maybe he'd go to the Universe and see if Robyn was there. She liked the fucking place, hanging with the Hollywood crowd, being seen, picking up dates. He'd ask her about Landry. Cam could force Olivia to do what he wanted. Or so he hoped. There were some tough scenes upcoming . . .

But where was the key to Landry? Robyn might know. She knew all about how to handle difficult men.

11

"Like the gladiator games in ancient Rome, spectacle reduces empathy. Callousness sets in, indifference to suffering. More excitement is required. Dangerous to humanity."

Oliver Stone, Wired Auditorium,

America Online, August 16, 1994

The Body had made sure the sophisticated alarm system connected to the office was left destroyed, in tatters. The wiring had been disemboweled from where it snaked through the building walls, the connection box busted to plastic bits, wires torn.

The Body had done the job in the early morning. Wristwatch hands stood at three AM. Not a soul on the street at this hour, few passing cars. It was a business district, upscale, not far from the studio where the Tonight Show was taped.

The Body returned to the car parked at the curb, right on the street, and lifted the trunk lid. Getting the blood was a difficult affair. Had to break into a stockyard way the hell out at the edge of L.A. and sacrifice a steer. What a mess. Took hours.

The blood had been kept in plastic containers with screw caps overnight in the refrigerator at The Body's house. The blood warmed from riding in the trunk. Warm and liquid.

The front office door was already open, yawning darkly along the brick front wall. A crowbar was sufficient to jimmy the deadbolt, though it had torn up the wood doorframe.

The Body lifted the first five-gallon plastic container and carried it across the sidewalk and into the black gulf beyond the broken door. Carpet, thick and expensive, cushioned The Body's footsteps. One strip of pale light filtered in from a front window overlooking the street. With vision adjusted to the dim interior, The Body stepped quickly to the desk in the office and set down the container to screw off the cap. Turned. Threw the blood at the walls. Almost giggled at the splash it made and the destruction it caused.

Returning to the car, The Body removed another container. This blood was used on the desk and computer, with enough left over to soak one of the waiting chairs.

Again. A third container. Used for soaking the remaining chair and sofa.

And again, for the last retrieval, and the blood was used on two more walls.

It stunk, the air redolent with fresh blood. The Body gagged and backed away, pouring the remainder of the blood from the container in the footprint impressions left on the wet, red carpet.

Driving away, a sigh of relief, fulsome and noisy as wind in trees, filled the car. This kind of thing was so risky. A passing motorist or a patrol car might have stopped to see what was going on. Someone might have walked past the office and noticed the door wide open and the smell of blood.

Yet it had gone without a hitch as if the cosmos was working in concert with The Body to bring down Karl LaRosa.

It was all correct and good. It was meant to be.

If blood did not unnerve Karl, nothing would.

If blood did not put a crimp in his lifestyle and business routine, there was little chance of ever putting Karl on edge.

Back at the house, The Body had to shower and dispose of the old clothes worn to dispense the blood. The containers were brought into the house and washed clean. The plastic sheet covering the driver's seat in the car was disposed of in the trash. If the murderer of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman could do away with a murder weapon, bloody clothing, and ruined shoes so that nothing was ever found by the police, then so could The Body. It was not as much trouble as one would suppose. Just about anyone could do it.

In the darkened nursery, sitting at the console, typing, The Body used up the hours until dawn when it was time to nap for half an hour before rising again to dress for the day on Cam's set.

Blood on the walls, the carpets, the furniture.

What a masterful idea the scriptwriter had created. What else might be in the script The Body could imitate? So far it had been the most fun in all the world. One day The Body would get the scriptwriter alone and talk about the movie. Cam had co-authored the script, the way he usually did these days on his films, but it had to have been the scriptwriter's baby, this blood scene.

Bringing fiction to life was exhilarating in the extreme. Playing the scenes before a camera paled in comparison to actually committing the scenes in reality.

It was doubtful Karl LaRosa would agree with The Body. Being on the receiving end of revenge couldn't be the most thrilling episode in Karl's life, something he'd been waiting for. And revenge was a cliché, wasn't it? However, revenge was wholly a human trait, a real oddity. No other animal took the trouble. It gave such satisfaction, revenge. Cliché or not, revenge was the anchor that held the planet in place in the solar system. People practiced it in large and small measure in all their daily routines. It was second nature to carry out revenge when wronged.

The Body moved to the bedroom and stood staring at the queen-size comfortable bed. No sleep to be had there. Sleep escaped from that mattress like steam from a kettle. Normal beds had ceased to work for sleep many years ago.

The Body turned away, leaving the bedroom behind, and entered the nursery again. The closet door was closed and now The Body opened it. Hanging from miniature coat hangers was . . . nothing.

There had been no time to buy baby clothes and that was in a way a blessing.

The Body dropped to its knees and crawled inside the closet and onto the four-inch foam rubber mattress pad. Plumped the pillow. Straightened the sheet. Reached up, grasped the doorknob, and first closed the door, shutting out all light, then reached for the switch low on the wall that turned on the small ceiling fan specially installed to circulate the air.

With eyes closed, sleep immediately tugged. Safe. In a cradle place, protected from all harm, shielded from all memory of the past. Safe from the world and the tumultuous trouble it held in reserve.

The Body tossed during the thirty minutes of deep sleep, wakened to the alarm set just at the head of the foam mattress on the floor, and sat up smiling in the close darkness.

Today a new scene would be handed out to the actors and crew to study. It could almost cause a person to clap both hands together in enthusiasm like a child with a big, gaily-wrapped box to unwrap.

No time for flights of fancy. Had to hurry. Makeup could camouflage the half-moons beneath the eyes and cover up the lack of sleep. Hurry, hurry.

Making movies was such child's play. Everything always taken care of by someone else on the payroll. You just had to show up on time, a warm body.

Orange juice from the fridge, gulped down. Toast, no margarine. A cup of yogurt, unflavored. Eat, eat, eat, must always remember to eat.

Showering took exactly two minutes. Scrubbing the head with herbal shampoo, the body with pure glycerin liquid soap.

Blow dry the hair, thirty seconds of vigorous tooth brushing, a quick gargle, underarm deodorant applied liberally. Now to slip quickly into comfortable clothes easily removed to get into wardrobe on the set.

Keys to the house. Lock it up. Step lively to the car, retrieving the daily newspaper on the way. The Body was on. Another normal beginning of a normal day working in the Hollywood biz.

12

"The director is simply the audience. So the terrible burden of the director is to take the place of that yawning vacuum, to be the audience and to select from what happens during the day which movement shall be a disaster and which a gala night. His job is to preside over accidents."

Orson Welles

Cam started out the day yelling. Before he could get his loafers on, the phone rang with the production manager's bad news. He was having trouble getting the permits to reroute traffic for one of the shoots and the scene would have to be put off for a couple of days.

"Couple of days? What do you think this is, a film bankrolled by the Shah of Iran?"

"Is there still a shah in Iran?" the PM asked facetiously.

"I ought to fire you for that." Voice and blood pressure rising. Putting off a shoot was no joke. Not in anybody's book.

"All right, I'm sorry. Listen, I'm working on it. I thought it was set, but someone at the courthouse fucked up, okay? I'll straighten it out as fast as I can. It's all I can do, Cam, don't start on me."

"Herb, I wouldn't start on you if you weren't so goddamn incompetent, you skinny-assed motherfucker!"

"I'm hanging up now, Cam. I'll see you on the set."

"To do what? Watch the crew and cast twiddle their fucking thumbs? "

A big sigh hissed through the phone line. "You can shoot around it, c'mon, stop now, already. I'm hanging up."

"You hang up on me and I'll call Strickland, see if he wants you back!"

Then there was silence. No sighing. No pleading for reasonableness.

Cam took the receiver and threw it on the floor of his bedroom. It bounced on the lush gray carpet like a ball. Then he picked it up again and threw it hard against the wall, cracking the plaster. The princess receiver set leaped up from the bedside table as if an electrical jolt had given it a pop. The third time he picked up the mouthpiece, he felt only a little better.

"Did you hang up?" he asked quietly, everything under control.

"No, I'm here." Another sigh.

Cam rubbed at his eyes with long, slim fingers. Then he reached for the crumpled pack of Camels next to the phone, shook one out and lit it. He drew in a deep puff of smoke before saying, "You're right, we can shoot around it. Get the fucker at city hall on the phone now and set it up for tomorrow. Not the next day. Tomorrow."

"Okay, Boss."

"And don't fucking try to mollify me by calling me boss!" This time Cam slammed down the phone in the cradle hoping the crash would bust the PM's eardrum.

Cam forgot to eat anything, forgot to brush his teeth, and forgot to comb his wild, crazy, and windblown hair. He arrived at the studio looking like a man about to blow a valve. As soon as the people involved with Pure and Uncut saw him, their glances fell or wandered elsewhere. Even Olivia carefully avoided looking at Cam straight on.

Catherine Rivers, as Cam's second-in-command, knew it was up to her to find out the problem and help handle it, whatever it was. She approached Cam the way a snake-handler went after a rattler. The stick and noose she used were her best traits: a cool exterior and iron constitution. She knew how to take abuse without making it personal.

"What happened?" she asked.

"We can't go to location. Fucking Herb fucking fucked up."

When Cam used three "fucks" in one sentence, it meant bad times ahead. Catherine looked out at the crew and nodded slightly to let them know the problem was going to be ironed out, just take it easy.

"How long do we have to postpone the scene?"

"I told him to get it fixed by tomorrow. I threatened him with Strickland."

"Ah." Herb used to work for another studio headed by John Strickland, a real ball-busting, back-stabbing son of a bitch nobody liked and just about everyone tolerated unless offered work elsewhere. Herb never wanted to have to go back to him. "Well, today what do you want to do?"

Catherine hadn't seen the script. She got the next scene Cam wanted shot just like everyone else. This put her at a distinct disadvantage in helping Cam over the bumps and rough spots. If she didn't know what came next in the lineup, there was no way she could help him pick a substitute scene. No day could be wasted. Sets couldn't be shut down for a day under any circumstances barring a classic, devastating, natural disaster. Hundreds of thousands of dollars couldn't be thrown away like that.

"Let me think!" Cam ran fingers through his disheveled hair. "I'm going to my office to find something. Keep everybody quiet. Don't let them get their pants twisted."

"You got it." Catherine walked off to have a conference with the actors. Next the crew. She'd tell them to sample the fresh strawberries catering had brought for breakfast snacking. Or the cantaloupe. Cantaloupe was high in vitamins C and A. Soothing food usually worked wonders on frayed nerves. Cam, for instance, needed about a truckload of the stuff.

Less than fifteen minutes passed and Cam literally burst from his closed office door. The door slammed and hit the wall, getting everyone's attention. You never knew when Cam was going to explode from his office or walk out like a regular human being. The explosions were enough to put everyone on fresh alert. Conversation stalled and the fresh fruit platters were forgotten. Cam looked like a mad locomotive as he swung his arms and barreled toward them.

"We were supposed to shoot out in the hills today, but that's been canceled until tomorrow. Here's the new scene. Keep the other one you studied last night and we'll play catch-up tomorrow. You've got forty-five minutes to study this one. Ad-lib if you have to, improvise, do a riff on the dialogue. We're getting it done today or we don't leave the lot."

He handed out the new batch of scene scripts, shooting them from his hands like throwing hot rocks. He consulted the big-faced Rolex on his wrist, clocking the readings.

Robyn called him over while the scripts were being read. The actors wandered to their dressing rooms. The crew went into various empty conference rooms that boasted long tables and comfortable chairs. No one mouthed a word of protest.

"Herb fucked up?" Robyn asked. "That's what Catherine told me, Herb fucked up."

"Royally. He's had months to get permits and work out all the legal stuff and now he tells me it's not done. I ought to slap the motherfucker into Sunday."

"You want some cereal? How about a slice of watermelon or some grapes?"

"What? Do I look hungry to you?" Cam twisted his mouth and frowned. He wore anger like a necklace, something big and gaudy and unmistakably expensive that lay in full view on his black hairy chest, glimpsed through the opening of his blue chambray shirt.

"You look like someone hauled you out of an alleyway. I hate to tell you this, Cam, but your hair could use a comb." She gave a small innocent smile.

Cam scowled at her, ready to blow like a volcano, but she smiled more brightly now, a fluorescent shine gleaming from her dark eyes. Then she reached out and smoothed down his ruffled black hair. When she did that, he grinned crookedly and all his anxiety fled. She was a rainbow and the storm was over.

"I been meaning to talk to you about Landry. I went to the Universe the other night hunting for you." He searched his back pockets for a comb.

"Yeah, what night was that? I'm not there every night of the week, Cam. Just most every night. Pick up a phone. They tell me the connections work real good these days."

Cam found what he was searching for in his back jeans pocket and combed his hair into a semblance of order. "Fuck what night, I didn't find you so let's move on. How do you stand that place? It's a freak show, the whole place is full of freaks. Never mind." He waved away her coming defense of the club. "See, Landry's not coming through. You know his stuff even better than I do. It was your fucking bright idea I give him the lead. If I remember right, you almost got on your knees and begged." His eyes twinkled, enjoying teasing her. But the anger returned, swift as sudden cloud cover. "Now how about you telling me why he ought to be doing this part instead of his lookalike, the wooden Indian back in the Old West prop room."

Robyn laughed. "Aw, he's not that bad. I think he's nervous. You're intimidating him. You intimidate everybody. Except me. I think you're a pussycat."

"Shit, I'll show him intimidation if he doesn't break out of that daze he's in. You know what he looks like in dailies? Like Alec Guinness on tranqs. I should have hired Hoffman even if I do hate that fucking egomaniacal dwarf. Or, hell, maybe I could have done something with Powers Boothe, has-been or not. I loved that guy as Jim Jones. I watch it every two years. Jesus, I don't know why I haven't used him yet, I need to write a note to myself."

"Landry's the right one for the job, Cam, and you know it. The names bring the wrong expectation for this part. We're not switching in midstream. I'll talk to him."

"You do that, okay? I've taken comedians and made them into dramatic actors, surprising not only the public, but myself. But I'm not so sure I can take a pretty-baby leading man and make him into the kind of star material I need for this. He doesn't have some cute little starlet here to hug and smooch on all day. I want him on the edge. Can you do something about putting him against a sharp razor, try to draw some blood? It's like some fucking vampire's already drained him dry."

"I said I'd try."

"No time like the present. He can't fuck this scene today because he's not in it, but he's in tomorrow's scene. Go after him now. Do what you got to do."

Robyn raised one perfect brow. "I don't think offering him a quickie would work."

"Like I say, do whatever you have to, but make him ready. Break that deadwood exterior or we're in big trouble, Robyn, I'm not kidding you now, I'm serious. I don't have to tell you how important it is for everyone to pull out the best they've got in 'em."

Robyn patted Cam's arm, an unconscious motherly gesture, and headed for Jackie Landry's dressing room. It wouldn't take sex, that wasn't called for, not now, not for this. Not that she had any aversion to trying out one of the best-looking studs in Hollywood. But no, that's not what would turn the trick. She was going to appeal to his ego in other ways. Cam had to get him performing at top notch or Pure was going down the tubes. Robyn was prepared to lie or pray or get on her back for this movie, if it came to that, if she discovered that was what it took. That's how much it meant.

Just the future, that's all. The whole goddamn future. Ending up on some street corner hawking carnations didn't appeal to Robyn, and as far as she could see, that was the alternative.

13

"The thing about performance, even if it's only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities."

Daniel Day Lewis, Rolling Stone

"I don't have a part in this scene," Landry said as Robyn entered his dressing room after knocking. He looked confused and disappointed.

"You'll do your part tomorrow—the scene we were supposed to shoot today."

"Well, I don't know why Cam gave me this and told us all we had less than an hour to study it if I'm not in the scene."

"He didn't take time to remember who was in it and who wasn't. He's . . . a little flustered, what with the last-minute change and all." Robyn took a folding chair and dragged it over to the upholstered wing chair Jackie sat in, the script in his lap. "Look, we need to talk."

Jackie set aside the script, letting the pages fold closed. "You want something to drink?" he asked, beginning to rise from the chair. Robyn took his wrist and he sat down again.

"No, I don't want anything. I have to tell you something important."

"What is it?"

When he was puzzled his eyebrows drew together. He really was gorgeous. Redford as a young man had nothing on Jackie Landry. Robyn felt a sexual spin rush over her. Maybe she should . . . ask him out. She blinked away the thought for later. Stop this, she admonished herself. He looks nothing like Karl. He acts nothing like Karl. You won't like him in bed, you know you won't. And he's too young for you, at least too young for a serious relationship to develop. Get a grip, kiddo.

"I'm the one got you hired for the part," she said.

"You? Well, gee . . ." He smiled, his white teeth lighting up his face. Then the smile faded when she didn't return it. "Cam probably didn't want me. What's wrong? I'm fucking up, that's it, isn't it?" He hung his head, a little boy about to receive his punishment.

"Jackie, listen to me. What you've done in pictures is good work, you know that. People envy you and you're offered some of the best parts, you make big money. But until now you haven't been given a chance to really act. The closest you got to it was in that remake where you played the cheap hood—and even that was more romance than drama."

"I would have been better than Gere in Breathless. That's the cheap hood I should have gotten to play."

Robyn reached out and took his chin, lifting his broad, handsome face. "You would have been perfect in Breathless. But even in that you couldn't do what you can do in the picture we're filming now. Do you understand me? This is your shot, Jackie. You keep dancing around with Cam and missing the inflections and getting off mark and tightening up on camera, you're going to blow the one chance you've got to show the world what you're made of."

He jerked away his face from her hand and looked at the door as if he wanted to get up and run out of it. "I'm trying. Cam's pushing. He won't stop pushing me. If he'd slack . . ."

"Cam's not going to slack up. He's going to get harder, he's going to get so hard you'll think you have a hundred-pound anvil on the back of your neck. I think you can take it, Jackie. I'm the one who begged for your chance. I'm the one Cam's going to turn on if you don't come through on this. Not to mention what's going to happen to me if this picture takes a dive or it gets canned. I've never been involved in a film that got shelved, but things happen. Bad things. Don't let that happen to me, Jackie."

"I'm not deliberately letting anyone down."

He still wouldn't look at her. Her tone had been scolding. Now she rolled her head around on her shoulders to loosen up the muscles tensed and bunched there like gnarled tree roots. "Jackie?"

"What?" Sullen. She had to change it all around. Actors were all kids. More truth than lie. With a kid you reinforced with sincere flattery. Nine of out ten times it worked. She had nothing to lose because she was sincere in what she was going to say to him. It was always easier to be genuine.

"You're the only actor on this picture who has the least chance of being a star when the audiences flock to see it. Did you know that? If you go tell this to Olivia or any of the others, I'll deny I said it, I'll call you a goddamn liar to your face, but I'll tell you the truth in private. You can be bigger than Tom Cruise. You can be more sensitive and brilliant than Val Kilmer, more dynamic than Travolta was in Pulp Fiction, more sexually dangerous and attractive than Pacino in his early films, more moving and believable than DeNiro. You can reach the top with this one film. Only you."

His head came up slowly. He had recognized the honesty in her voice. It had touched him where he needed it most, she saw that in his eyes. He opened like a night-blooming flower, the understanding in his eyes widening slowly, circling his brain, settling into a comfortable place in his soul. Had no one ever told him this before? Didn't he know it? How could someone with such potential not know it?

There lay Jackie Landry's true innocence and his real strength. He had not bought into the Hollywood dream fully. He had not fallen for self-delusion. He had not inflated his worth until it was so large it engulfed a minor talent and rode it into the ground.

"You mean it," he said.

She nodded, biting her lip. She waited until the dawning of his understanding became full day. "You have to do this for me," she said, almost in a whisper as if this were a secret between them. "You have to do this for yourself."

She waited again while he stared at her, stared at her lips as if she might say more.

"I can't keep trying," he said, stating the truth he knew finally. "I can't try, I have to be what it is Cam wants. That's what you mean."

"Yes." Her heart leaped, rejoicing.

"I should have no fear, not of Cam, not of Olivia, not of myself."

"Yes, yes!"

"I have to be Perry Johns and no one else but Perry Johns. I have to be him more than I'm me. I have to let his suffering in.”

"See? I knew you'd understand!"

He stood with her and they embraced, happy children, children who have forgiven one another past grievances and are willing to love again.

He said against her ear, "Thank you, Robyn. Even if you've lied to me, thank you. Don't worry any more, you don't have to worry about me."

She closed her eyes, basking in his maleness, secure in the circle of his strong young arms. She whispered back to him, unable to stop herself, "Meet me at the Universe tonight. Dance with me then. Just one dance."

"All right," he said, releasing her and smiling down into her face.

He was radiant, an angel, and at that moment, God, how she loved him; every inch of him, every hair, every last masculine beautiful bit of him.

14

"Just like those other black holes from outer space, Hollywood is postmodern to this extent: it has no center, only a spreading dead zone of exhaustion, inertia, and brilliant decay."

Arthur Kroker, Panic Hollywood

Robyn melted in Jackie's arms during a slow dance in Heaven. The band sang old blues tunes made famous in the forties by Robert Johnson. The singer doing the cover version was black, male, and exceptionally talented, although not a rival for the throne of bluesman Johnson.

"I'll be good tomorrow," Jackie said next to her ear.

He was talking about the shooting of his scene the next day in the hills outside Hollywood. He had his arms around her waist, holding her tightly. She had her hands looped around his neck and hoped he'd do some dirty dancing before the singer finished his rendition of "When You Got a Good Friend."

"You'll be perfect," she said, meaning it. If he wasn't, Cam was going to give her real hell again.

She and Cam went back seven years, to the time when she first got into the business producing. They had done their first deal together, pitching a sweetheart western to Paramount. It hadn't gone over and was finally turned down by every studio they tried, but from then on Cam trusted her and knew her strengths. She could collect money men like other women collected diamond earrings. She was good at convincing them to risk it all.

But Cam would not spare her hell. If hell is what she deserved, he'd dish it out happily and serve up a side order of heavy suffering for good measure. That's what made him a genius. He might like you, but he wouldn't mind putting the screws to you to get his films right. All that mattered was the picture.

This time that's all that mattered to Robyn, too. That and good sex.

Jackie's body was lean and firm. Not a muscle-builder type, but still strong enough to make her heart skip beats. She had worn the blue dress, the one with the scooped neckline and mid-thigh skirt. Underneath, she wore sky blue stockings with blue and red splashed stiletto heels. Nothing else. Underwear wasn't necessary with the kinds of clothes Robyn chose to have designed for herself. The dresses all came with built-in bra bodices for the most elegant and natural uplift her breasts ever received. She might be small—all right, petite—but she made what she had go a long way. Anyway, it always surprised her how many men liked little women.

"Will you take me home?" she murmured, going crazy thinking about sex with Jackie.

They had shared dinner at the Beverly Wilshire, her treat, drinks in the bar there, his treat, and now a half hour rubbing bodies on the dance floor at the Universe. He had suggested Planet Hollywood and she said wait, let me show you the Universe, you'll like it better. And now it was time for the pièce de résistance. Show time!

"My pleasure," he said, maneuvering her from the floor before the bluesman finished his last guitar chord.

Robyn had hired a limo for the night to prove to Jackie how special he was. She'd dismiss it when they reached her place and she'd call it back if Jackie wanted to leave again. If not, if he stayed over, she'd drive him to location in the morning. Let everybody talk. It's what they did so well and she did have a reputation to uphold besides.

It was hardly ten o'clock. Neither wanted to stay up too late, not when the next day was the day Jackie meant to show her, show Cam, what he could do with his part.

Neither of them noticed they were being scrutinized from the shadows at one end of the bar as they gathered Robyn's light jacket and purse.

Both would have been surprised to know Cam sat there in the dark, nursing a draft while watching them all night.

On the other hand, if they had known he was watching, and thought it over a bit, they'd know they should have expected it. It was his biggest film. What Robyn did with Jackie to get him to act was of Cam's gravest concern. And if they'd known, they would have expected he was probably muttering to himself about how he hated the Universe, hated the alternative music, hated wasting his time in a Hollywood hot spot when he could have been down at some little stink-hole bar with real people.

But they did not know and Cam wasn't about to let them find out.

After dismissing the limo Robyn took Jackie's hand to lead him into the three-story, white stucco, two-million-dollar house in the Hollywood Hills earned from the profits on her last production deal. Once inside the elegant, but cold and austere, house that she found too late she didn't like very much, she turned into Jackie's arms and kissed him long and thoroughly. He slid both hands down to cup her ass and she squirmed against him, china doll in the arms of a sun god. It was going to be a good night. He was as hard for her as anyone she'd ever fucked.

The telephone rang and they froze, tongues in mouths, hands full of body parts. The answering machine picked up and after an anonymous male voice asked the caller to leave a message, Robyn pulled away to listen more closely.

Jackie stood next to her in the shadowed foyer, waiting. They could hear the answering machine in another room off the foyer go click and then beep and then there was a two-second silence. Finally a heavy sigh floated toward them, amplified and weary.

Karl's voice suddenly echoed through the empty dark rooms of the spacious home.

"I've been calling all night, Robyn. I'm sorry to leave so many messages. They wouldn't let me talk to you on the set today, said you were busy, weren't taking calls."

Robyn stiffened. Jackie slumped.

"I have to get this," she said to him, moving away without turning on the lights, leaving him alone in the vast foyer.

Karl's voice continued. "The police have been called in now, but they don't have anything, really, it's half a joke to them . . ."

Robyn reached an extension and picked up. "What police?" she asked, sounding angrier and more put-out than she'd meant to sound.

"You're there! Oh, thank god."

"What is it, Karl? I have company."

"I'm sorry."

"What is it? You said you called the police."

"Robyn, you need to help me. Someone's . . . well, someone must be crazy. They broke into my office and threw . . . blood . . . all over everything. The walls, the desks, the . . ."

"Blood?" Blood, she thought? Did he say that?

She heard the front door close, a soft punctuation with a small echo. She said, "Wait a minute, I'll be right back." She dropped the receiver and let it dangle from the wall phone while she hurried to the foyer.

He had gone.

She opened the front door calling, "Jackie?" but he was gone. Not a trace of him on the walk leading to the street. No sign of him on the street either. He'd have a long walk to find somewhere to use a phone to call for a cab. What the hell was wrong with him?

"Well, shit."

She closed and locked the door, really angry now, and stalked back to the phone.

"Thanks a lot."

"What's wrong?"

"My company." She paused, hoping Karl would feel some twinge of jealousy. "Is no longer my company. He left.”

“I'm sorry, Robyn, I said that. But this is important.”

“Yeah, yeah. What about blood? I think you're losing your mind, Karl."

"I wish it were that simple," he said. And that's when she began to listen.

15

"Some people are addicts. If they don't act, they don't exist."

Jeanne Moreau, International Herald Tribune

"I had a call from my agent telling me I didn't need a publicity manager. I'm not big enough yet."

She sat across from Karl's desk wearing a prim gray suit that would have looked at home on a school teacher except for the fact she wore no blouse underneath. The jacket buttoned just above her waist so there was skin showing nearly to her navel. Flesh Girl. In his mind, that's what he'd nicknamed her. He was going to trade on that idea—nothing in the world skated as well as selling sex—but here she was leaving him when they'd hardly started a campaign for her.

"I think your agent's wrong. You're making a mistake," he said calmly.

She wrinkled her nose and glanced over at his closed office door as if she smelled something bad. She knew about the blood that had soaked the outer office. Karl didn't know how she and his other clients knew. It wasn't reported in the papers or trades. But word traveled in this town like an oil fire over still water.

"Whoever broke in the other night isn't anyone who knows you, Karleen. You don't have to be afraid."

"I'm not afraid," she said, straightening her shoulders and looking past him to the windows at his back. He wished she'd look at him. "I just don't need your services right now."

Karl glanced down at the pen in his hand. He'd been twirling it nervously and now he let it drop to the desk. He stood. "All right. If you've made up your mind, I guess that's it. I'm sorry to lose you. I had an interesting idea for your future, but . . ." He shrugged.

She stood and held out her hand. He saw half her left breast, a small suntanned moon peeking from the suit lapel. "It's got nothing to do with . . . you know." She gestured with her head toward the door.

"No, of course not."

"When I'm making more money, I'll probably be back.”

“I hope you will," he said.

She wouldn't make a lot more money if she didn't use him, he thought. You didn't make it here by looking deliciously sexy in a gray suit or by having an agent. It took more than that, lots more. But she'd been scared off by the incident that had ruined his office and he had to let her go, what could he do?

After she'd left his office, he slumped in his chair. That was the fourth new client he'd lost in as many days. It couldn't just be the break-in. Someone was getting to them, warning them off. Karl wasn't much for conspiracy theories, but the actions taken against him were as plain as day. You didn't have to be paranoid to see the barren landscape lying in wait ahead of him. His stalker simply had to be the culprit, running off his clients.

Before Karleen Comodore had come to give him her regrets this morning, he had received in the day's mail a rejection for his request for a Gold Visa. He already had a Gold Mastercard, a Diner's Club card, American Express, and maybe half a dozen other credit cards. His secretary, Lois, must have filled out the Gold Visa request off one of the advertisements that came to the office periodically. She had been trying to handle things like that so he wouldn't be bothered. He, personally, didn't give a rat's ass about another gold card line of credit.

But that they had refused him made him sit with the rejection letter in his hand, puzzling. They turned him down? He was worth roughly a million plus, owned real estate in Malibu free and clear, took in a salary from his management business that consistently went over eight hundred grand even with two accountants trying to bury his profits from the IRS, and a bank somewhere in this country turned him down for a gold card? It was unbelievable.

First Karl called in Lois and asked if she was the one who had filled out the application for the card. She had, yes, was that wrong? She knew she didn't ask him, but . . .

No, he told her, it wasn't wrong, thanks. She went back to her desk, frowning slightly.

Then he called two credit bureaus. The one in L.A. and the one in Burbank. They would not discuss on the telephone his credit rating, but they'd send him copies of their reports for ten dollars a copy. He sent for them with the fees enclosed. Now it would be a few days before he could really find out what was going on. The rejection of his application for the gold card noted "outstanding credit obligations and payment record" as the reasons for turning him down.

Obviously someone had monkeyed with his credit rating. How could they do that? Computer hacking? A friend in the credit bureau?

Karl had heard of people being ruined by vindictive ex-spouses and envious business partners. There were ways to completely undermine a person's life since everything was digitally available. If you knew the codes and the underhanded tricks, the chains to yank, the people to bribe. And somebody did.

A short rap sounded from the door and Sherry Northumberland peeked in. "Lunch?" she asked. "I have an hour free."

He smiled on seeing her sunny face. Sherry had been one of his first clients ten years before when he first started his business. He had been instrumental in getting her face known about town, introduced her to producers and directors, took her to the right parties. She was doing okay now, chosen consistently for strong female leads. He remembered that he had bought the fine walnut desk he now sat behind from his commission on the Northumberland account.

"Yeah. Lunch sounds great. Let me speak to Lois and meet you in the waiting room."

She shut the door but not before winking. He smiled, felt lighter than he had in days. Part of Sherry's success was due to the effect she had on people. She was like rain after a parched summer drought. He could use lunch with someone cheerful who might help chase away the clouds hanging over his head.

~ * ~

They sat across from one another at a little spaghetti place called Farrar's not far from his office. They wouldn't be bothered here. And Sherry didn't need to be seen at Tuscany's in Brentwood to add to her allure. At least not today.

"So how's life, kid?" She slurped from a large Coke through a straw. She wore a dazzling buttercup-yellow dress that highlighted her dark looks. She favored the dress style of the fifties. Shirtwaists, pleated bodices, belts of the same fabric as the dress.

"Your account's doing okay. You don't need me much these days, Sherry."

She waved that away. "I didn't mean me. I meant you. I heard you had some trouble at the office. Who would do such an obscene thing?"

He sipped from his cup of coffee. His tenth since rising. He felt all jangled on the caffeine, but on the other hand he needed the lift. He thought if he didn't drink coffee down like water, he'd collapse in a tired little puddle.

He hadn't wanted to talk about his troubles. He wanted to hear about her picture and if she was happy with the new husband and the new baby. Tanya, they'd named her. "I guess everyone knows. I lost a new client this morning because of it. Rumors must make it sound worse than it was."

"Blood all over the place isn't bad?"

"It's some kook."

"I hear it might be a woman. I told you about loving them and leaving them." She grinned and pointed a finger at him. She could say things like that. They hadn't been involved. And he'd known her so long.

"I don't know who it is."

"But it could be a woman?"

He dug into his spaghetti. "I guess it could. I figure it has to be." He ate a mouthful, then put down his fork. "You're not leaving me too, are you, Sherry?"

"Hell no! You think I'd take you to a lunch this expensive to fire you?"

He had to smile. Farrar's was one of the most inexpensive cafés in the whole area. "I'm relieved to hear that. Even if you're doing fine, I want to keep track of your career."

"I'm not leaving you, Karl. Ease up. If you're losing new clients, they were kids you couldn't help anyway. You have to have balls for this business. They won't make it if a little rumor and innuendo scare them off."

Though he secretly agreed with her, he knew there were other publicity companies they could turn to. He wasn't the only one in town. He was just the best.

"I know what you're thinking," she said, tackling a string of spaghetti that kept slipping off her fork. "There are other outfits they can go to, but no one like you, Karl. No one I'd trust my whole life to, but you."

He was touched and told her so.

"Don't thank me for the truth."

"What's the rumor?" he asked. "What are people saying?"

She motioned for the waitress to refill her glass of Coke. "It's nothing much."

"Tell me. If I don't know what's being said, I can't fight it.”

She looked him in the eyes. He'd never noticed before how long her lashes were. She was a dove-like woman, soft and embraceable. He wondered why they'd never had an affair—and now it was too late. Maybe he wasn't her type. He didn't get to sleep with all his pretty clients. Didn't even make the effort. It got too messy combining business with pleasure, although that's how Hollywood worked, for the main. He just didn't like all the complications. Look how his marriage to Robyn had turned out for an example of how it could go wrong, he thought bitterly.

"They're saying you hurt someone. That someone's out to hurt you back."

"That's bullshit!"

"You told me to tell you the rumor. That's the rumor, Karl. I know it's a crock of shit and I said that to the person who told me. 'That's the biggest crock of shit I ever heard,' that's what I said."

"I've stepped on toes, but who in the business hasn't? But I swear to you, Sherry, I've never deliberately fucked anyone over. Never. That's not how I operate."

"Singing to the choir, baby." She smiled again and he sat back, wiping his mouth, easy once more.

"So what are you going to do about it?" She took the refilled Coke from the waitress and gave her a smile as winning as the one she had given him.

"The police pulled out of it. They won't be a help so I'm on my own."

"Why did they do that?"

"They have a point system, sort of, in stalking cases. I don't have enough points."

"What's that mean?"

"It boils down to the fact I haven't been physically threatened or assaulted."

"Someone tried to run you off the freeway!"

He glanced up. "You know about that, too?"

She nodded. "I'm afraid I might know most everything. Like everyone else."

"The police said the freeway thing might not be connected. Until someone says they're going to kill me, put out a hit on me, or actually stick a knife in my back, they can't really get involved. There's something like four thousand stalkings going on in L.A. every year. Did you know that?" She shook her head. Shock at the high number caused her to frown, worried. Actresses were usually the target for stalkers. "And the numbers are rising. They don't have the manpower to get involved and they don't have the authority until there's been . . ."

"Blood."

He winced, remembering the office covered with sticky, stinking clots of the stuff. "Yeah," he said. "Until someone brings out the knife."

Sherry looked pained and pushed her plate aside. "I think my appetite just went to Caracas."

"Mine too."

He finished his coffee and she drank her Coke and they let silence hold them in the palm of its hand so they didn't have to talk anymore about what a toilet his life was turning into.

On the sidewalk when they parted, she gave him a big hug. "I'll spread the rumor that the rumor everyone's hearing is a lie. Maybe that'll help."

"You're fabulous, Sherry. I love you like a sister. Kiss little Tanya for me. We'll get together . . ."

She smacked him on the arm before walking away. He watched her yellow dress, the full skirt buoyed by petticoats, move and sway with the motion of her lithe legs.

She halted, turned around, shielded her eyes even though she wore dark sunglasses. "You'll be careful?"

"You betcha."

"All right." She waved. "All right," she said, "call me if you need me."

She left him on the sidewalk in the famous Californian golden sunlight, his worry heavier than it had been in his office, before the lunch.

Nasty rumors, horrible incidents, credit bureau snafus—what next? he wondered. Is there really a knife aimed at my back?

Who, who, who?

He needed to call Catherine. And Marilyn. And a few more women.

Sherry and the rumor mill were right. He had hurt someone and she was out to hurt him back. Hard.

16

"Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.' Mature love says: 'I need you because I love you.'"

Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving

Karl watched Lisa carefully as she removed her satin slip the color of cranberries and stood naked before him. He reached out and took her by the waist, drawing her close enough to press his face into her breasts. Lisa Golden's body could make him forget his name. He knew he shouldn't use her as a drug, but sometimes it was necessary to blot out the world just for a while. Lisa would forgive him if she knew. And she probably knew. Not only was Lisa smart, but she was perceptive beyond her years.

She ran the fingers of both hands through his hair, caressing his scalp and pulling his face over a few inches for him to take one of her nipples into his mouth.

His head swam and he groaned aloud. He moved from her nipple, kissing her breast as he went, rising from the edge of the mattress, kissing the hollow of her throat that smelled of a floral perfume and then to her chin, and finally her lips. He laid her on the bed, soaking in her heat.

She took a thatch of his hair and pulled his head away. He looked into her eyes, believing she would request something special.

"When can I move in?"

Oh god. Not that. Not now. He felt his ardor wane, turned from her, and lay on his back staring at the ceiling.

"Karl? Did I say something wrong? It's been a year of this aggravation where I have to dress and leave for my place or you dress and leave for yours."

He rolled his head from side to side. "It's not wrong, Lisa. It's just . . . inconvenient."

"You don't love me enough."

He shut his eyes. Of course he loved her, he loved them all. He just didn't love them enough, it was true, to marry, and that's where it always fell apart.

"You know the trouble I'm having," he said.

"I won't get in the way."

"I haven't lived with a woman since my divorce. It's better this way. Don't you know it's better?"

She sat up on an elbow and leaned over his chest. His hand automatically moved behind her and smoothed the velvety skin of her back. If they could just let this drop and return to making love, the night would be perfect again.

"Do we have to talk about this right now?" he asked. "How many have there been, Karl? How many in this bed? A dozen, two?"

Goddamnit. The whole night ruined.

"I don't keep score," he said. "I've never seen you this way. Why would you ask me something like that?"

"I thought I was different for you. I thought, after this long . . ."

Now she was going to cry. She had put her head on his chest and she was limp as a rag doll. He felt moisture on his skin. He tightened his arms around her.

"Lisa, don't. You are different. You're important to me. I don't know what I'd do without you."

That wasn't what she wanted to hear, stupid lines all men said to women. It wasn't enough and he knew it, but he couldn't help it, there was no more and that wasn't her fault, was it? She continued to silently cry. He lay there still, cold now, the sweat cooling on his body. He held her and waited, feeling like a bastard.

Lisa Golden had been a client for a couple of years, but nothing he'd tried to do to help her break out had worked. She was too ordinarily pretty and too moderately talented. She had nothing outstanding to offer Hollywood, nothing that would bring sparkle to the big screen, and the studios knew it without even giving her a screen test. Even Karl knew it, the first time he laid eyes on her, but you couldn't tell a young actress your misgivings and kill her dreams with such utter disregard. He had had to try despite the fact he'd be investing money in a losing proposition. This time, as he had expected, he failed.

Lisa left show business, coming to the conclusion her stars were not in alignment, her fate slated for another business. Besides, she was starving. Waitressing and studying acting at night kept her poverty-stricken. She had found work with a real estate broker, finally, as a representative. And excelled. Now she handled some of the biggest Beverly Hills and West Hollywood properties. Mega-million-dollar deals whose commissions allowed her to buy up a little condo here, a little cottage there. She was a dynamite businesswoman. She was already worth half as much as Karl, with no end in sight.

He admired Lisa's spunk. Pretty, cultured, and a go-getter. All rolled into one, the combination was irresistible to him. It was a plus, in his book, she wasn't involved in show business any longer.

But marry her? Let her move in with him or he with her? It was out of the question. He hadn't fallen in love with a woman but twice in his life. Once in college with a girl who went off to the Peace Corps and gotten a fatal tropical South African disease that killed her the year after he graduated. And one more time, years later, with Robyn. Oh hell, Robyn. It always came back to her. It was impossible she might be the one stalking him. It couldn't be.

As for love, he didn't think there was a third time left inside him. He's used up all his love, wasted and squandered it. The most he could feel for Lisa was deep affection and that was never enough, never enough, never. Savvy businesswoman or not, Lisa wanted the picket fence and the babies. She wanted a lifetime commitment. They all did and he didn't think that unreasonable. It just wasn't what he wanted.

Well, he did want that, why lie to himself? He turned his head to the side on the pillow and closed his eyes while Lisa cried.

He didn't know how to get it. Not again. Whenever he had tried for it before, the whole dream that was love had vanished before his eyes.

"It's dangerous enough you're here with me now," Karl said, stroking her hair. "I couldn't let you stay here."

"You really think someone might hurt you? Hurt me?"

They heard the front door crash shut and Karl was off the bed in a flash, his heart pounding. Lisa was right behind him, half falling from the bed and getting to her feet. He started from the bedroom, stopped and pushed her back roughly with his hand on the middle of her chest. "Don't come out here."

He realized only then he was naked and felt foolish, but not enough to stop going toward the front of the house. He snapped on lights as he went, dispelling shadows, his heart going crazy.

"Who the hell's there?"

The door was closed and no one was in the room. He hurried to the door and opened it, furious it wasn't locked. He had locked it earlier. He'd never go into the bedroom without the door locked.

He peered into the dark, down the brick walkway curving through red-blooming oleander and saw no one. He heard a car start somewhere on the street where he could not see. He turned, running through the house for the bedroom again. "I need my gun!" he said to Lisa. The shock had made white rings around her eyes so that she looked raccoonish in the dim bedroom lamplight. He reached in the bedside table drawer and took out a small Beretta.

He grabbed the bathrobe he'd discarded after his shower and threw it on. He ran back through the house again and to the front door, scampered down the walkway, looked up and down the street.

The car was gone. The street was empty save for a pair of taillights, dwindling red eyes that turned a far corner. He'd missed his chance to grab whoever had been in his house.

"Damnit," he said. His arms hung at his sides, the gun gripped tightly in the sweaty palm of his right hand. He felt defeated. It never worked the way it did in the movies. When Bruce Willis in the Die Hard movies needed to tackle someone, he never missed. When he landed a blow, it took the other guy down. But in real life, going up against an enemy was more miss than hit. He wasn't a professional. He was just a man living on the edge, stumbling toward his own private Armageddon.

He trooped back to the front door and almost missed the creamy envelope stuck in the wood frame of the door facing. He reached out and took it, tore open the envelope and read:

How can you sleep with women like her when you know you love me? Your betrayal breaks my heart, Karl, it breaks my heart.

He wandered through the house and found Lisa still standing in the bedroom where he'd left her. She was shivering and had put on her slip. "Gone," he said. "If I hadn't been naked I could have caught her."

"Her? It's a woman?"

He put the gun back into the drawer and sat on the bed. He handed the note to Lisa. As she read it he said, "It has to be a woman. A jealous woman. A crazy one."

"How'd she get into your house? I saw you lock the door."

"You tell me," he said. Did she have a key? He'd change the goddamn locks. "I'll change the locks tomorrow. I'm tired of this. I'm so pissed off I feel like punching holes in the wall. She was in the house. She must have been watching us." He glanced over at the bedroom door and tried to remember if he'd shut it before they undressed and couldn't remember if he had or not.

She sat down on the mattress edge, but didn't try to touch him. "My heart's beating so fast it might jump out."

"Yeah, mine too. Now do you see why you can't stay here? It's not safe. If I didn't have all my possessions here, I'd abandon the goddamn house."

"You can't do that. You can't let her scare you off, that's what she wants."

"Does she?" He wondered. What did she want, anyway? And how much of their conversation had she heard? She had been at the door, listening, he knew it. He couldn't have closed the door. Why close it, when they thought they were alone in the house? She'd wanted to scare them, slamming shut the front door as she'd fled. She'd wanted him to run through the house naked and scared. She had played him like a virtuoso on a twelve-string guitar.

"Why didn't your alarm system go off?" Lisa asked. She had risen from the bed and was now slipping on the rest of her clothes. She was leaving and he didn't want her to, but he wouldn't say that. It was probably best she left. He'd never be able to make love to her now. That's what the intruder had wanted, wasn't it? The bitch, the damned bitch.

"Whoever it is keeps disconnecting the alarm system. She did it the first time she got into the house and I had it rewired. Now she must have done it again.

"I hate these notes!" He threw it on the floor, knowing how childish that must look.

Lisa was dressed and holding her purse, her car keys in one hand. "I'd never do this to you, Karl. You know that, don't you?"

He looked up, surprised. "Of course you wouldn't do this."

"I mean if we . . . if we stopped seeing one another. If it didn't work out. I'd never do something like this. People who can't control themselves give me nightmares. Too many people just can't seem to control their urges anymore. It's like people have given themselves a license to go insane if things don't work out for them."

He crossed the room and took her into his arms. "I know, I know."

"And I won't bring up us living together again until . . . well, until this is over."

Afterward, you'll ask about it, though, he thought sadly. There will be no way you won't ask again. And that's when I'll lose you for good.

He kissed her gently and walked her to the garage door off the kitchen and out to her car, a little yellow Miata. He stood watching her back down the drive to the street. Once she was out of sight he still stood at the garage door, looking into the still, peaceful night. He could smell the night jasmine that grew over the fence. It reminded him of his youth in Santa Monica when he was out on the streets at night with his friends. They had always been surrounded by the sweet scent of jasmine offset by the salty sea breezes.

He lowered the garage door and turned off the light. He would burn the note. He would place chairs beneath the doorknobs again. Tomorrow he would have the locks replaced and the wiring for the alarm system repaired. Not that he thought any of it would do any good.

Preventative measures weren't solutions.

He just didn't know the solution.

17

"Hollywood's a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss, and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty cents."

Marilyn Monroe,

Marilyn Monroe in Her Own Words

Marilyn Lori-Street hung up from talking with Karl. She sat scowling at the telephone handset on the coffee table a few seconds. Then she shrugged and let out a breath and went to the kitchen for cappuccino. A rich, dark, frothy cup would keep her awake too late, but she could take a sleeping tablet if it did.

She took the cup with her to the small studio area in her house. It was a small room done in pure white, with a wicker settee and little table, and a wicker rocker. The best thing about it was the exposure. Light flowed through the windows in three of the walls all day long. She loved her place in West Hollywood. She couldn't afford the rent in the better areas, not yet, but maybe after the release of Cam's film she might be able to. Still, she'd always remember this little house with the white rock garden and yucca plants. Besides, West Hollywood was particularly safe for a woman, she had been told. It was a gay community and women just weren't bothered in the neighborhood.

In the studio on an easel sat a watercolor pad of her latest little watercolor painting. Working on something would take her mind off Karl's veiled accusations. She painted oddities. Squatting men with their genitals excised, blood puddled between their knees. Bodies hung upside down on crosses on a dark field at night. Windmills with human arms that stroked the wind. Any horror that came into her mind, she painted. That way it was outside her, no longer inside where it festered and made her depressive.

She didn't try to understand what the paintings meant. They were hostile and demonic, that was easy enough to detect. They probably revealed the torture in her soul, but she couldn't interpret them beyond that. They just made her feel better, that's all, and sometimes one sold in a little gallery in L.A. where she let them be hung. She wondered what kind of people bought them. Crazies, no doubt. People as fucked up as she. The kind of people who used ice cream scoopers for marital aids and who went into their backyards at midnight to pray to Satan in the bowels of the earth.

She picked up a brush thick with scarlet watercolor paint and dipped it briefly in a cup of brown muddy water, then slashed a bold streak of the red across the sky of the painting on the easel. As she worked she tried to remember why she had come to Hollywood to pursue a life as an actress in the first place. She had been born Phillipa Lori Frankowitz and taken the name Marilyn Lori-Street when she hit town. Although Jews were in abundance in Hollywood society and many held powerful positions, she had the sense to know Frankowitz wouldn't do for onscreen credits. Lead actresses were once again beginning to use ethnic-sounding last names, but she didn't have the gumption. She also didn't have the time it would take to make a name like Frankowitz acceptable.

So she had named herself after her heroine, Marilyn Monroe—another woman with an unusable name when she came to this town. She had kept her own middle name, Lori. And she had added Street because . . .

She paused in her painting, the brush hovering inches from the wet canvas.

The street was bad. The street was hell on earth. She had been on the street a while, trying to make enough money to buy decent clothes and save enough for a safe place to live. The street had almost killed her before she even had a hundred bucks put back.

She had been beaten badly by a girl who believed Lori was stealing her street trade. Only a cop trolling past in a patrol car saved her from being marked ugly forever with a knife down her cheek.

She had slept on park benches, been thrown in jail for vagrancy, and shared beans from a can with a guy in rags who talked to her all night about how Jesus was a cunt and a liar.

It was no more than she had expected. Coming from Idaho where a third-rate high school drama teacher enthused about her talent on stage, thereby unwittingly sealing her fate, she had no reason to believe she'd land a part in a sitcom the moment she hit town. Hell, she couldn't even get in to read for a part for over a year. They took one look at her ragged nails and shoes that were run down at the heels and they showed her the door.

Luckily, she had met Karl in a little bistro in Brentwood where everyone was dressed in exercise gear and pristine white Nikes and Karl had saved her life. He took her from the street, helped with the rent for six months until he found her a small part in a thriller, and taught her how to behave and how to show gratitude other than by offering her body.

She owed him everything.

Which was why his phone call tonight made her angry enough to reinvent the new painting with a red, boiling sky.

She and Karl had had a thing. Like he said. A thing. He hadn't wanted to, but she had insisted and pressed herself on him until he couldn't refuse. Wherever Karl showed up, she was there. When he was alone, she latched onto him like an octopus, fearless and totally without inhibition. Had she not pursued him, she had explained back then, she'd have never been able to repay him and she couldn't stand being in debt, her pride was so great.

Yet she had been touched by her affair with Karl LaRosa deep down, so deep she had almost stopped painting altogether. She never thought that could happen. She had been painting as long as she had been acting. And she had been acting since she was a child, lying her way out of whatever small trouble foretold coming punishment.

When their affair took hold of her soul and she told him, he began to move away from her, a slow steamer making for the shipping channel. She saw it, almost from the corners of her eyes, his faithful tracking into the distance.

When she confronted him with her knowledge of what he was doing, he at first denied it and then said to her, "I never wanted this to happen in the first place, Lori. I was afraid it would come to this."

He was afraid!

It would come to this!

She quit him. Then and there, marching out of his office with her shoulders thrown back and her head lifted. She had seen one of his more luminous clients do that to him once and had determined if it ever came to it, that's exactly how she would exit. Haughty as hell. Cold as an ice storm. Expressionless and silent as a glacier.

Her agent found her work and she paid back every penny

Karl had lavished on her. She even sent back the heavy-link gold bracelet, though she thought it her good luck charm. At Christmas he gave all his clients nice gifts, so she packed up the bracelet and the crystal angel and the bronze elephant, all gifts from Christmases past, and mailed them to him.

She bought her own gold bracelet. And wore it to all tryouts and to the set each day, though she had to take it off for the scenes she played.

She put down the paintbrush and sipped from the cup of cappuccino. She brushed back the feathered blond bangs from her forehead and let air out of her lungs before breathing in deeply again. Was she in shape? Should she ride the stationary bike tonight?

She put down the coffee mug. Took up the paintbrush. To hell with Karl LaRosa.

She would be a star soon, very soon, and Karl LaRosa could just go to hell for all she cared. Let him fucking go to hell.

18

"Too caustic? To hell with the cost. If it's a good picture, we'll make it."

Samuel Goldwyn, The Great Goldwyn

"You let making movies kill it between us," Gary said. He was in the process of packing his bags. There was a betrayed, hang-dog look in his eyes. He accused Hollywood and everyone in it, said that show business was her lover, a thing he couldn't compete with. He'd been vying for her attention for three years and was at the end of his tether. He was right; Catherine Rivers loved Hollywood more.

She stood in the bedroom watching him, rather relieved to see he had made up his mind. The thought of divorce hurt her terribly, but not as much as the thought he might stay. All they did was ravage one another, their arguments so poisonous that they made her sick for days afterward.

"I'm sorry, Gary. I guess you're right."

He stopped packing to look at her. "You don't care, do you? You don't care that this place and this business killed our marriage. Three years down the drain!"

"I care but there's nothing I can do about it. I won't give up my job for you and that's the truth."

"Job?" He hawked out a sarcastic laugh. "It's your whole life. It consumes you. You haven't had a moment for me since you started this picture with Cam. Pure and Uncut, that's all I hear. Cam did this, the actors did that, the producer did the other."

"You're acting like a spoiled child. You knew it was my important break, Gary. It's my big chance to learn from the best director this town's ever seen. If you listened to me, you'd know why I'm all caught up in shooting this script."

"This is also your chance to lose me and good riddance, I suppose." He threw the rest of his things haphazardly into the suitcase and snapped it shut.

His hair was wiry with curls which, when they were damp, like now after a shower, gave him an angelic appearance. He was too soft for this town. He never should have moved here from the East Coast. He should have lived all his life in New York and married a nice Jewish girl.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" she asked when he brushed past her through the door.

"I'm absolutely certain. I don't hear you begging me to stay."

She let him go. Heard the front door shut.

She went to Barb's bedroom and looked in on her to see if she had woken. No, she lay asleep, arms flung out above her head, covers hiked down below her knees. Couldn't keep covers on the kid. Catherine used to worry about Barb getting cold, but unless she zipped her into a flannel pillowcase, she wasn't going to keep her under the covers.

Barb would miss Gary, but he wasn't her father so it wouldn't be as difficult as it might have been. Her father was a retired director, not a famous man, but not a failure at the game, either. He picked her up on weekends and took her for cotton candy and walks at the beach.

As Catherine stared at her little girl sleeping, she was reminded of the pregnancy before Barb, of how she had ended it. She thought then, when she did it, she'd never think of it again. But now that she had given birth to a child, the thought of the unborn came unbidden into her mind all the time. What if she'd had the babies? She had been carrying twins. Boys, girls, one of each? She didn't know. The pregnancy termination decision had been made too early to know the sexes of the fetuses and she hadn't wanted them to tell her, even if they'd known. At that time of her life, the pregnancy was just a nuisance. They'd been fathered by a man she did not love.

Still, regret struck at times, and she wished she could go back a few years and have a talk with her younger self. The decision might have been different. And would having children have really interfered with her career plans? Really? Maybe. Too late to know that for sure now.

Catherine closed Barb's door quietly and went to the kitchen for coffee. The house seemed empty with Gary gone, but it was a good emptiness. When he was here their voices were raised and they fought over her work. She had been so unlucky with men! If Gary had been in the business, it wouldn't have been that way. But he was a medical supply salesman, on the road a lot, and he didn't understand one iota what she was doing or why.

She poured the coffee and opened the door onto the patio. She sat down at a patio table just outside the kitchen. In the moonlight, with the kitchen light at her back, she might relax and forget. All gone, all the men in her life. The father of the unborn twins, Karl, Barb's father, and now Gary. She might as well admit it—she was a terrible risk as a mate. She was no good at it. Men came and went in her life like brief spring showers.

Tomorrow Cam had the location shooting and she had to pay attention. No one could get shots like Cam, no one could get a performance out of an actor like him. He was one of a kind and it was her great fortune he had asked her to be his assistant. It meant long hours and she didn't get to see Barb much. At least she had live-in help for when Barb was home after preschool and didn't have to worry, but she missed seeing her daughter.

A shadow flickered to Catherine's right and she flinched, staring in that direction. Nothing. Just a limb of a tree swaying in a breeze. She was on edge, that's all. What was it Karl LaRosa used to tell her? That she was too uptight? Wound up like a toy dog that walked and squawked and wagged its tail. He insisted she took too much to heart, said she made too many connections, she was water dancing in a hot pan. It was the reason they had split up. He hadn't done a damn thing for her career, either, to be truthful. In fact, her time with Karl was a real washout.

Face it, she told herself. All her time with the men of her life had been a washout.

Hair along the nape of her neck stiffened and a shiver ran over her arms though the breeze was warm. She looked again into the deep shadows. She felt watched. But in order to watch her, someone would have had to climb over the brick wall surrounding her property. That was ridiculous. No one would do that here in Beverly Hills. She was just nervous as water dancing in the hot pan again.

She'd go inside where she didn't have to see shadow play. Get some sleep, alone in her bed, the place on the other pillow empty again. No more thinking, no more regrets of the past or of the present. She was who and what she was, that wasn't going to change. And she was a good person. She would be a great director one day. Besides, though she might be losing her second husband, at least she had her little girl. That was what was important now. Her daughter and her career. It's all that she had ever really wanted.

19

"If you play a monster but don't touch on his humanity, he remains just a monster. If you can find his humanity, then I suppose that is the art of acting."

Gene Hackman, interviewed about his part in

The Quick and the Dead.

This had nothing to do with the script. The Body felt lured to Catherine Rivers' home, pulled by an invisible leash.

Standing with an ear pressed to the door, listening to the argument between Catherine and her husband, had done wonders for The Body's morale. A few minutes earlier or later and the whole conversation would have been lost.

Minutes after Gary left the house with his packed suitcase, Catherine wandered into the kitchen and poured a mug of coffee. The Body backed from the door and found cover in the black shadow of an overgrown crepe myrtle tree. Blending into shadows had become second nature.

The door opened and out she stepped, beautiful in her royal blue dressing gown with the sash at her waist, her dark hair tied back with a barrette. She stared straight ahead, feeling herself alone, and then she sat at the glass patio table, both hands around the mug of coffee, looking down into the steam rising from the liquid.

The first time she glanced toward The Body, tension rode the air like finely packed ozone particles. The Body drew in a single breath and held it. If she came to investigate she might get hurt. If she rose and moved into the shadows to investigate, she was lost.

She glanced away, shrugging off her sixth sense that warned her someone lurked nearby. She was heavy in thought, her brow puckered, hands still as death.

Then, after a while in contemplation, she looked again in The Body's direction and this time she took the creeping sense of being watched more seriously because she rose and entered the house.

Longing broke The Body's heart. It was necessary to lean against the tree, holding onto it to keep from falling. Hands held onto the bark so tightly that indentations pimpled The Body's palms.

Over the brick wall, onto the street, into the car and gone from Beverly Hills. Winding down toward the lights of the city, The Body reviewed the night's events. Karl in bed with that chunky high-toned bitch, Lisa Golden. How she begged to be taken in! Like a stray cat or dog, she wanted Karl to adopt her into his house, into his heart. Didn't she know Karl LaRosa had no heart? His feelings of love were like those of a king who had abdicated his throne. He didn't love women. He fucked them a few weeks or months and then he cast them off forever.

Slamming shut the door when exiting Karl's house felt like shooting off rockets on the Fourth of July. Let him know he had been watched. Let him know he had no privacy. His life was for shit. He no more had control of his destiny now than did the conductor on a runaway train screaming down a mountain slope.

~ * ~

Then driving over to Catherine's. Studying the layout of the house and grounds, finding a way to slip past a neighbor's Rottweiler without arousing it, discovering the chink in the brick wall that protected the back area of Catherine's house, the chink that afforded a foothold so the wall could be climbed.

And listening in glee as Gary left his wife.

And watching with heartache a thoughtful Catherine sitting alone on her patio, coming to terms with the emptiness of her life.

But then it's what she deserved! She should have no husband. She should have no child either, but she did, she did, and The Body wanted it, but that was insane. Better not to think of the child. Not for a moment's time. Lapsing into that kind of thinking was more dangerous than anything in the world.

Karl would suspect Catherine of being his stalker soon enough. And when it all was said and done, perhaps The Body would consider doing something about the child then.

A pretty little girl, slim and blond and bright as sunlight reflecting off amber. Barbara was her name. A terrible name, a grown-up, prissy name, didn't fit the child at all. The Body could rename her anything. The name Michelle had always been nice. My belle, Michelle.

The Body had once had a sister named Michelle. A long, long time ago. Chubby little dark girl with dimples in her cheeks and stars caught in the depths of her eyes. Michelle loved to change her clothes all the time, exasperating their mother. She would leave a string of clothes throughout the house, discarding them as she went, donning other ones that might suit her for only ten minutes or so.

Michelle dead. Floating face down, arms hanging loose, in the sky blue swimming pool, hauled in with the long pole used for scooping up vagrant leaves that sometimes dotted the pool when the wind blew hard over the cottonwoods.

The Body parked and unlocked the door to the house. It was too hard tonight to go into the nursery and write thoughts on the computer.

Best to go into the sensory deprivation chamber and sit in the leather chair and wipe away all those old memories of Michelle before going to bed.

Try to forget everything. Just for a while.

20

"Talk to them about things they don't know. Try to give them an inferiority complex. If the actress is beautiful, screw her. If she isn't, present her with a valuable painting she will not understand. If they insist on being boring, kick their asses or twist their noses. And that's about all there is to it."

John Huston,

Things I Did . . . and Things I Think I Did

Georgie couldn't get the shot and he couldn't believe in the first place that Cam was going to make him try. Cam, livid as Georgie had ever seen him, screamed, "Do it over again, goddamnit, you're not listening to what I'm saying to you."

The problem was one of safety. And one of expense. A camera cost a lot of money, a lot, and even though this camera wasn't rented, but owned by Georgie himself (with help from Cam on their last film together), why would he want to bust it up? Georgie would do anything for Cam, but he wasn't keen on breaking his camera or his nose. Pain wasn't his bailiwick.

"I break my camera, you buying me a new one?" he asked Cam, only half joking, trying to get Cam to settle down to a serious burn rather than a raging cyclone.

"Don't worry about the camera, we're not talking about the camera. I told you to do this shot this way and that's what I want you to fucking do. Olivia's character has gone wild and we're going to show it."

Georgie looked over at Robyn. The production company would be ponying up the costs if Cam got the cameras busted. She gave him a slight nod indicating it was all right, but he could see she was nervous about it by the way she fidgeted, rolling a pencil back and forth between the palms of her hands.

"Don't be staring off at Robyn," Cam said, almost in Georgie's face now. "Are you going to ram that wall or am I going to ram that fucking camera up your ass?"

The scene was set up on a soundstage. The day before they had filmed the location scene and it had come off pretty well. Now they were back on the studio lot and the scene involved Georgie, as first cameraman, being the point of view for Olivia as the stalker. He was her eyes while tearing up Landry's home. That took some skill, but Georgie had done point-of-view shots a hundred times and he knew how.

His camera told the tale. It took the viewer right into the madness of the character, showing all events as they happened through her eyes. Clothes ripped from hangers in a closet and sliced to shreds with a sharp, long-handled knife that flit in and out of the camera's eye, darting through the cloth, zippity-zip. Chairs overturned, tables pushed up against other furniture, cabinets flung open in the kitchen shot, and pans and dishes thrown around in a fury of breaking glass and banging metal.

It was cheesecake. All those scenes went fine. Georgie was huffing and puffing when he finished, but he got it right—or at least to Cam's satisfaction. But this. This was something else again.

This was where the character was supposed to fall into a state of frenzy heretofore never seen on screen before. After taking her anger out on the set, she was supposed to take it out on herself by running and slamming head-first into walls and doors, falling down, getting up again—with shots of Olivia doing just that before the camera took over again in her place to show the physical abuse the character heaped upon herself. Cam wanted her to throw her body around the set of the living room as if she had become unattached to the flesh and was using it as a bludgeon.

She was great. She was better than great. With her hair streaming across her face and something in her eyes so wild that the crowd standing around fell stone cold silent, Olivia insisted on doing all the shots herself, no body double, no stunt woman. She banged and threw herself and grunted and growled. She had done her part so well that when the cameras stopped rolling, the place exploded in applause as if she had done her act on a Broadway stage. She had now left for the dressing room.

Cam began screaming. "You didn't get it! Georgie, are you listening to me? You slowed up just as you ran at the wall head-first. You've got the other shots right where you turn around, showing us the destruction of the room while Olivia's character slams a wall with her back, but you're not getting it head on! I want you to hit the wall."

Georgie was breathing hard and sweating. He moved back from the set's plaster wall and stared at it through his lens, lining it up. It wasn't going down easy, that wall. It wasn't going to fall over for him or explode apart with trickery. No zoom shots, no hydraulic tracks, no Steadicam. Not good enough for Cam. He wanted something else, something different. Oh lord god.

He sucked his bottom lip into his mouth and clamped down on it with his teeth. Had to do it, had to try. Cam wouldn't let him off the hook on this thing.

He took off in a sprint and went into a dead run, the same as Olivia had done and been filmed as she ran across the same living room toward the same wall. He let his lip go and his mouth fell open and . . .

Just before hitting the wall, he hesitated, sliding forward until he was only two inches from smashing into it. He lowered the camera in defeat. He thought his heartbeat could be heard all over the soundstage. It drummed loud in his ears.

"Cut! Cut!" Cam came stomping over, screaming again. "Hit it! Hit it, hit the goddamn wall, Georgie! Run into that motherfucker. I got to paint a picture for you? I want you to slam into that wall."

Georgie wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief he kept in his back pocket. "Cam, I hit the wall and this camera's gonna be ruined. It's lunchmeat."

"I told you already, I don't give a goddamn if you break the fucking camera, I want you to slam into the fucking wall! Do it again. Do it now. Do it now."

Cam turned his back and moved out of range. He signaled for Georgie to begin. Georgie backed away, drew a breath, cursing the day he ever signed onto this project, then took off across the floor, aiming for the wall, the camera held steady as he could manage at eye level, his feet pounding the floor, his heart pumping hard, hard.

He saw the wall coming at him and something inside him cringed, yelling, No, don't hit it, no, don't, but he couldn't hesitate this time, he had to hit the damn thing running full blast, he had to . . .

The long front lens of the shouldered camera connected with the plaster with a sound so loud it hurt his ears. The sudden jolt rushed through his hands, arms, radiated through his shoulder blade and knocked him on his ass. He had broken his glasses. He sat with the camera in his lap and his glasses askew and cracked on the bridge of his nose. He should have taken them off. He didn't think. He hadn't given it a thought, nor had anyone else.

"Broke my glasses," he said, feeling the pain now in both shoulder and face. It was fire running through his bruised skin. If the insurance guys happened to walk onto the set and saw what he had done, they would have been aghast.

Cam ran over and grabbed the camera, checked the shot through the specially attached videocam that would not give him the proper frame or light, but would tell him if he got the shot he wanted. "No!"

Georgie heaved a sigh. He looked up. "I didn't get it?”

“Fuck no! It's all crooked, the impact isn't strong enough, it's not what I want. We have to do it again."

Georgie came to his knees and then to his feet, the glasses in one of his hands. He saw a knuckle was bleeding, droplets falling onto the floor. He must have scraped it against the rough plaster. He glanced over at the silent crew standing around the set. Everyone mesmerized. Olivia had returned to the set, legs crossed, the script lying open in her lap. Her look was impassive. Landry stood nearby, frowning. One of the extras, a girl, covered her face with shaking hands. Georgie knew before the day was out, she'd quit.

He looked up at Cam again. "I can't do this," he said calmly.

"What do you mean you can't do it? Of course you can do it.”

"I'm not doing it. Is my camera broke?"

Cam turned it around and looked at the lens. "It's got a crack. We'll get another one for you to use. I'll buy you new glasses. I want it shot again, okay, and this time you have to really do it."

Georgie reached out to take the camera as if he were willing to comply with Cam's wishes. Once he had it in his possession, he looked at Cam, his vision blurring without his glasses, and said, "Get someone else. You're crazy if you think I'm trying that stunt again."

"You're stalling on me, Georgie? All these years together and you're fucking walking off a set when I need you to do something for me?"

"You've asked a lot of me, Cam, but this is too much. I'm not doing it."

Georgie squared his shoulders and lugged his camera with him as he walked away. Mutters ran through the others on the set and he decided he wouldn't look them in the eyes. He was right on this one. He didn't have to be bullied into half killing himself. Not for one lousy shot.

Behind him an ominous silence issued from Cam. By the time Georgie got to the bathroom to wash his hand and check out the damage to his face, he heard Cam's loud voice raised, calling for the second cameraman to take over. Fine. Let Masters get his face shoved in.

After he had cleaned his hand and found a Band-Aid to slap over it, he returned to the set to watch from the sidelines. If Cam didn't see him, he'd be all right. He had to watch this scene shot. He wanted to see someone dumb enough to run into the freaking wall with a heavy camera worth thousands of dollars.

Cam stood in a huddle with Masters, giving instructions. He was animated, moving his hands around, pointing, grimacing. He was talking low now, not shouting. Maybe he thought he should use a new method on the troops. He did that for contrast. He did anything to get what he wanted. Shout one moment, hug you the next. It might make him a genius, but it was also manipulative and sometimes cruel.

Georgie had been with Cam for years and he had accepted Cam's rages until now. It was the first time he'd crossed him and he didn't care if he got canned for it. He wasn't going to pull a crazy stunt like that.

Cam walked away from the cameraman, turned, put his hands on his hips. Masters shouldered the new camera with the rigged video so Cam could check the shot. Georgie couldn't see his face without glasses, but he knew Masters must be making some kind of fierce face, trying to muster up the courage to do what he had to do. The crowd watching took a collective breath and no one moved a muscle. Movie making was supposed to be high art and illusion. People weren't called on to risk themselves this way. The very thought put everyone into a grip of silence and worry.

Masters started running across the set. He ran faster and there was the wall right there, right there, and wham! Masters hit it full throttle. The concussion of camera against plaster sounded like a thunderclap. Masters bounced back and landed in one direction while his camera flew out of his hands in another.

Cam ran over to the camera first and checked the shot. He turned around, grinning, and put out one hand to help Masters up off the floor. Georgie heard Masters say, "I think I broke my hand. I can't move my fingers. Jesus Christ, my fingers are broken."

Cam patted him on the back, still grinning like a crazy-in-love baboon. "It's great. You got it. You got the shot I wanted. You're a good man, Masters, you're a most excellent man."

Cam gestured someone over. "Take him to see the doctor, get his hand looked after."

Georgie stood in awe of the other cameraman as he was led away. He'd actually done it, actually run right into the wall with the camera to his face like some suicidal air pilot taking out a tanker. It was amazing what Cam could inspire people to do for him.

The crowd began to talk and Cam went on setting up the next shot. He was on the third cameraman now and none of it had slowed him down for a minute.

Despite himself and his personal feelings about how he'd been hurt trying to get what Cam wanted on film, Georgie had to admit a grudging admiration for both the director and the cameraman. Cam might be relentless, but he was right about how that shot would look on screen. It would make an audience suck in their gut in pure wondrous shock.

It was going to be one hell of a movie. "Pure and Uncut" described it correctly, no false advertising there.

21

"Where does one go from a world of insanity? Somewhere on the other side of despair."

T. S. Eliot, "Harry, Lord Monchensey"

Go slow, go easy, baby, take it easy. Slip in, destroy everything not nailed down, slip out. Don't let it get away from you.

That's what The Body tried as a control mechanism, knowing with one part of the mind that advice to the self wasn't going to work.

Karl LaRosa wasn't home yet from his office in Burbank. There were two free hours before he could be expected back.

Two hours to mangle and crush.

The scene filmed by Cam was brilliant, nothing short of brilliant. If The Body could create the same kind of massive devastation, Karl would come into his home, take one look, and have a heart attack.

First the kitchen, make it methodical. Neighbors weren't going to hear anything. Karl's house was set too far away from neighbors, all the wealthy on Malibu Beach believing that privacy was of the utmost importance. Stupid overpaid fuckers.

Breaking the first dish, a saucer, was the sprinkle before the deluge, the stream before the gullywasher. The glass sprayed out across the floor, shards of pure white splinters thin as toothpicks. Beautiful.

More dishes followed, crashing into the wall, the stovetop, the refrigerator door, the floor, until there were nests of splinters lying all about.

The Body felt blood pumping through the extended veins of arms and legs and forehead. Fury was coming. It hovered like a shy lover at the edge of the shadows, waiting to be lovingly called forward into embrace.

Slow down, control it, control it.

Pans had to come out from hiding in their shelves, foodstuffs had to tumble from cabinet doors, fresh food had to emerge from refrigerator shelves, frozen food from the freezer. All of it thrown, not just dumped, but thrown around the room, swinging the arms like windmills. And laughing, laughing to beat the band, what fun it all was!

The kitchen was done. Premium work. Much better than what had been carefully arranged on the set today. You couldn't arrange chaos. You had to become a part of it and let it possess you. Movie making was magic, was artifice. The real thing was so much more invigorating.

Steady, slow down, take a step back, survey.

But still the blood pumped and the veins stood out blue and pulsing and the heart thump-thumped crazily. It was all building and The Body knew in the deepest core of being that there was no turning back now. There was no human control on earth that could stop what was coming.

Hurrying into the living room, The Body let the frenzy take over though all the while the mind advised against it by crooning, Slow down, take it easy, do it right, don't let it bear you away.

Remembering the scene on the soundstage, The Body took up sofa pillows and ripped them with a knife lifted from a kitchen drawer. The phone and attached answering machine were ripped from the wall and thrown across the room. The sliding glass patio door took a chair to the midsection and crackled into a spider web of safety glass. Break the coffee table's legs off, smash it, stomp it!

It was too late, too late to hold back now.

A spare bedroom for guests, turned into garbage, the bed cut open and leaking stuffing. The drawers pulled out and broken into pieces. The blinds left hanging like Medusa snakes from the windows.

Then into the bath where everything in the medicine cabinet was thrown so hard, jar by container by bottle, that noxious liquids and salves gushed and split open and sprayed across the wide mirror. A roll of toilet paper was stuffed and stomped into the toilet, which was then flushed so that water ran over onto the floor.

In a small study the books were ripped from shelves and their pages torn and thrown like confetti into the air while The Body laughed hysterically, having now given in to the rage, and become lost totally to the rush of destruction.

Karl's bedroom saved for last, his clothes taken from their hangers in the closet and ripped into streamers with the kitchen knife. His drawers torn out and dumped in the center of the floor, the mattress wrenched off the box springs. The Body threw itself onto the leaning mattress and, accompanied by a growling that sounded like an animal about to rip open a new asshole for an enemy, the knife flashed into the stuffing, slashing at it, slashing it into deep volcanic crevices of darkness.

The Body rolled from the mattress and got upright again. There were tears on The Body's face. The mind was gone, having given in to the sheer exhilarating horror of physical violence. Unlike the scene shot on Cam's film set, this was no movie, this was no script, this was no idle entertainment, oh no.

It was death in the making. It was the sign pointing toward the coming of death splendiferous.

Black hatred infused The Body with the strength of Goliath. There was a big chair to overturn, a heavy-framed picture to rip down from its perch and send sailing into a wall.

And then the ultimate release of pent-up passion.

The Body dropped the knife from a gloved fist and shivered for a moment in ecstasy. With eyes closed and teeth gritted, The Body felt the first wave of urgency. Eyes flew open and the legs moved The Body faster and faster from the bedroom to the living room, tripping over downed furniture that lay spread-eagled and dead and broken. Then the legs helped The Body lurch into the wall.

The shock of contact shook The Body's bones and rattled the teeth.

Again. Backing up, running at the wall, just as the cameraman had done, running like a fullback for the goal, head down to chest and . . .

The Body found itself on the floor and crawled to bruised knees. Felt the tiny stream of blood coming from somewhere on the scalp. Took the blood and smeared it over the cheekbones and lips, yes, over the lips now, so as to taste the thrill of madness.

Up again, shakily, head pounding with pain, flinging the body forward to the wall once more, slamming into it, crashing from the side with the arms bent and held together so that the wall cracked and gave, plaster crumbling to the carpet.

Backing away, stumbling backwards, ramming the wall with the back so hard that the head snapped forward. Finally, it was upon The Body, attendant to it; the demon of lunacy everlasting so that all thought fled the brain and there was nothing in the world but the walls; the walls, and the body slamming into them, bouncing off them, falling and getting up and slamming into them again.

And again.

And again.

When the heat of fury sighed into the realization of physical limits, The Body stopped abruptly, seeing for the first time not only the ruined house, but the ruined person who stood in the house.

That's when The Body left, shaking all over as if from palsy, and drove away, satisfied the scene had been played exactly right. More perfect than any actor pretending madness on a painted set, with false props and breakaway boards and glass that would not cut.

If only Cam could have seen it. If only a cameraman had filmed it.

Blood dripped from The Body's forehead and there were red scrapes on the arms, but otherwise, nothing too harsh had been done to alter the health of the flesh.

Bruises could be covered and they would heal.

Not so easily the rents in Karl LaRosa's life. Those would never heal. They would only split further to reveal the putridness and the unspeakable emptiness behind the veneer of a normal man leading a normal life.

The Body licked sore lips and swept back bloodied hair from the forehead. The drive home was long and served to cool the blood, calm the system.

The evening had been more exciting than any before it. How could this be topped in the script?

Easy now, slow down, take it way down. Squelch all the noise and listen to your own advice, The Body thought.

Get home first, safe and sound, take a long hot bath, with the head resting on the cool white rim of the tub. Review the scene in quiet contemplation. Give yourself a rest. A pat on the back. You did so well. You were not controlled, but you completed the scene with Oscar-winning zeal.

You deserve a rest.

22

"The passion for destruction is also a creative passion."

Mikhail Bakunin, Reaction in Germany

Karl stood at the door leading into the kitchen from the garage. He stared dumbfounded at what had been done to his home. First anger came at the sense of invasion and total destruction. This was followed by a deep, compelling sadness that the human race could be so vengeful, that it knew no bounds when it came to retribution for perceived wrongs—whether that perception might be based in fact or not.

He stepped over shards of glass, picking his way gingerly around cans of pinto beans and corn, through spilled Golden Grahams cereal, over dented pans and pots, melting ice cream cartons, thawing packages of fish, vegetables, and meats.

There was ketchup everywhere, like globules of darkening blood, streaks and spots of mustard on the stove top, grape juice splattered over cabinet doors and milk souring on the pale yellow walls.

In the living room it was worse. Stuffing lay about like drifts of snow over the broken tables and chairs. Moonlight spread across the fractured and webbed glass of the sliding doors like molten silver patterns of crocheted lace.

Karl made his way through all the other rooms, taking big deep breaths, sighing to himself, grieving for his possessions. A self-pity came over him, knowing that his beautiful things could be ruined so easily. His home was a shambles. He wished he could leave the house, re-enter it, and find everything perfect again.

He picked up a small glass paperweight in his study. It wasn't broken, but the bottom had a chip missing. He set it on the scarred desktop where it fell over and rolled until he caught it and mindlessly slipped it into the pocket of his slacks. The heavy round weight of it knocked against his thigh as he finished up seeing the mess in the bathroom. He lowered the toilet lid and sat down. He stared at the floor between his feet, at the unrolled toilet paper lying in ribbons there.

He should get up and try to do something about all this. He should unclog the toilet, clean up the smeared remains of mouthwash and toothpaste and liquid soap puddled over the countertop. He should pick up the food in the kitchen and mop the floor.

He should move out. Leave town. And never come back.

The courage to go on had to be found. Something to rattle him from his depression. He stood and walked through the rooms again, facing what he had to do. And where was the note? She always left him a note.

He made his way again to the study and looked around, thinking the note might be there. But there were too many papers, ripped books, sheets of the yellow pages. If the note was here, he would never find it.

In the bedroom, that's the most likely place it would be, he thought, and picked his way through the rubble there again. He scanned the room, eyeing everything carefully. Then he saw it. A creamy square of stationery lying on the floor at the foot of the bed. He might have overlooked it amid the clutter if he had not been searching for it.

He picked up the folded paper and gently opened it. Do you like it? the note read.

"What do you want?" Karl shouted as if the person who had written the note was present and could hear him. "What in the hell do you want with me?"

Why did you throw me away like garbage? You see the state of your house? That's how you left me, torn to pieces.

It's going to get worse for you. Much worse. You should have loved me better.

The note ended with the puerile Xs and Os, the kisses and rings of a warped personality. Karl strained to understand. H e must have inadvertently hurt someone horribly. He didn't remember hurting anyone that badly, but it must be true. If only he could remember who. And when. All this time he had tried to decipher the actions taken against him to determine 'who might be doing it, but he just couldn't.

Earlier in the day he had gotten copies of his credit reports from two different credit agencies. He discovered many of his bills had been paid late, putting him into a category of credit abusers. But he had never been late paying his bills. Not that he knew about. He even drove to the agencies and talked to the people there. They insisted the reports were valid. He had not paid on his accounts with various creditors for months.

Karl made the agencies take a statement he signed stating be felt the reports were incorrect and that he had never made late payments in his life.

It would do no good, his statement. His credit was in the dumper. He didn't know how it was done. Any number of ways could have been used to ruin his credit rating.

Someone could have stolen his outgoing mail so his payments were never sent. That theory was the least believable since most of his bills were paid from the office in Burbank. Another way could have been found by someone hacking into the agencies' computers and altering information. This seemed possible. In a generation where computers handled all the information and records, a computer expert could easily do what he wished once he got through to a company's computer database, connected through a modem from his home computer. Or someone inside the agencies had been paid to falsify the information. That didn't seem feasible either, not at two major credit-reporting agencies.

It was all done electronically, he imagined. You couldn't get the agencies to believe such a thing. It meant admitting their computer systems had been broached. Rather than think themselves vulnerable, they would consider his idea to be just an accusation made by a bad credit risk.

His credit was ruined now. Nothing he could do to repair it. There was no way he could prove his files had been electronically changed.

His house all in ruins around him.

His clients leaving him right and left. Two more had ended their contracts with him today.

His office broken into and covered in blood. His employees nervous and jumpy.

Did this person who had done all these things to him want to make him crawl?

That was a good supposition. If he lost his credit and his clients, he would soon go out of business. Once a downward spiral started, how was Karl to stop it?

If he could only find out who was doing it. None of the women he had contacted seemed to even know what he was talking about, much less appear guilty of the acts. How far back in time should he go? How many women should he question? Five years, ten? Back to his college days or high school?

The worst of it was he suspected whoever could go to this much trouble was someone who would fool him if questioned face to face about it anyway. Anyone this determined could look him straight in the eyes and commiserate with him, even, and he wouldn't be able to tell. He'd never ferret out the culprit.

Yet he had to.

He looked around at the house with its contents torn and scattered and knew he had to. His life, his future, his peace of mind; everything depended on it.

He refolded the note and took it with him to the kitchen. He almost slipped in a puddle of melted vanilla ice cream, but caught the edge of the counter in time to stay his fall. He took up the wall telephone receiver and dialed a number. When the man answered, Karl said, "My house has been vandalized. It's in complete ruin."

Jimmy Watz, Karl's longtime friend said, "Shit, Karl, you need to call the cops."

"It won't do any good."

"I'll come over."

"Okay."

Under the blazing overhead lights that threw the broken furniture into vivid relief, Karl sank down onto the torn sofa in the living room and he waited for help to arrive. This just seemed too big to handle alone. He hadn't the energy to tackle it without backup. He needed one other sane voice to tell him it could all be straightened up, it could be set right again. Without that, Karl might sit all night long on the sofa holding the folded note, depressed to the bone.

Karl had known Jimmy Watz since college days when they roomed together at UCLA. It was Jimmy, a drama major with hopes of breaking into Hollywood, who pointed out to Karl where his greatest talents lay. Once they graduated, Karl had taken on the task of finding Jimmy a venue through the labyrinth that was Hollywood. Getting to the right people was something Karl could do quickly and with ease, mainly because he wasn't doing it for himself—he was on a quest for a friend. He could take the No sir, you can't see him today, and the No way you're getting in to his office, and the lies and subterfuges and delays without letting it bother him. Or deter him. It wasn't his whole life that was on the line. Rejections held no power over him. That made him relentless and it made him successful.

Karl got into studios that Jimmy never could have penetrated. He set up meetings with producers and directors that most would-be actors would have killed to attend. He convinced pretty secretaries to give him appointments with their high-power bosses, showed up looking cool and intelligent in his best clothes, and he talked up Jimmy Watz as if Jimmy were the second coming.

By the time Jimmy had his first bit-part, he was encouraging Karl to take on pumping up actors' careers as a full-time job. "Karl, man, you've got it, you know? You ought to be an agent."

But Karl didn't really want to be an agent. He couldn't see himself working in a mailroom for two years and trying to wangle his first assistant position. He didn't really want to handle the contracts between actors and studios. No, he told Jimmy, that's not for me.

"Then start your own business. Be a . . . be a publicity maven!"

"A what?"

"Start a publicity company. Take young actors like me and get them in, just the way you've done for me. Teach them how to handle themselves. Publicize them. Get them press, get them into meetings, get them agents . . ."

So that's how it had started. With Jimmy playing a street punk part in a low-budget crime flick. Karl never looked back. He found Jimmy a good agent, worked out subtle but effective publicity campaigns, and Jimmy was more than happy to pay him for those services.

It wasn't long before Karl rented a small office, not in a good part of town, but he found a couple more young actors with talent who didn't know how to break in and he helped them get to where they were going. The business boomed. Within five years, Karl took care of fifty clients and had moved to his Burbank office. He'd hired a secretary and later had to take on assistants. His client base swelled to almost two hundred and fifty.

Jimmy was right. Karl was good at it. He had no wish at all to enter the business himself so that freed him to work on behalf of his clients. The more Karl did for the young actors and actresses, the more his business grew.

Not that Karl took on everyone who walked through his door. Some of them he had to turn away, so many came to his office looking for some kind of foothold into show business. Many of them just didn't have the right attitude or they didn't have the God-given graces or looks to make it. Most of all, too many of them had no training and no aptitude for acting. He couldn't push someone who had little chance of making it.

The word spread through Hollywood circles. If you've got what it takes, Karl LaRosa can help you find the right agent, he can get your name noticed, and start you on the road to success. But if you don't have what it takes, Karl's not going to take your money and run. He just won't take you at all.

Thanks to Jimmy, Karl had found a direction for his life.

He had never known in college what he wanted to do. He took a smattering of courses that gave him two majors, neither of which directed him to a point on the compass where he could spend his energies in something he loved doing. But when he got Jimmy started out in the business and saw him move forward, Karl felt genuine satisfaction. He had been the maker of the dream come true. He had been instrumental in helping a friend get what he had always wanted. It thrilled Karl and made him work even harder on Jimmy's behalf, and then for the other clients he took on.

It had been a good life, a successful, fulfilling life. Until now, when trouble dogged his every step and all his years of work were about to go down the drain.

Jimmy came through the garage and into the kitchen. He stopped there and cursed at what he saw. He glanced at Karl sitting with his hands in his lap on the living room sofa. "Karl, what's going on here?"

"I don't know," Karl said, his voice full of defeat. "Here's the latest note." He held up the paper and waved it in the air. His friend had been told about the others.

Jimmy picked his way into the destroyed living room and took the paper from Karl's hand. He read it and cursed again. "You need the police to handle this," he said.

"I told you already. They don't have the time to get involved when it's just property being destroyed. They'll come out and take a report, but they can't put a watch on my place or follow me around every day. There's no point in calling them and wasting their time. That's the impression I got the last time I called them."

"You must have some inkling about who's doing this," Jimmy said.

Karl looked around the room. He reached out and picked up one of the shattered legs from the broken coffee table.

"I've talked to some of the women I dated."

"Yeah?"

"Hell, I don't know who it is!" Karl exploded, rising from the sofa and kicking at the table in front of him. He threw the busted table leg down and turned, stomping through the rooms, Jimmy behind him. "I don't think I'd know if I talked to her."

"But how many women could hate you this much, Karl?"

Karl turned around and his face was pale with anger. "None of them could hate me this much. I've never done anything to anyone to make her hate me like this."

"Don't get pissed off at me. Just listen, okay? We need to figure out something. You can't just keep going in circles, wondering, while this continues."

"Someone fixed my credit rating," Karl said.

"Fixed it?"

"As in they fucked it up. I couldn't buy a loaf of bread on credit now. I'm down for late pay on every loan I owe.”

“That's impossible."

"It may be impossible, but it's reality. I went to the credit agencies to see what was happening when I got turned down for a credit card. Whoever tore up my house monkeyed with my credit rating. I don't know how. You can do anything you want if you have a little computer knowledge, you know that. How does this person disarm my alarm system over and over again? How did she get into my office? She just did it. She won't quit doing it. She's like a force of nature coming at me."

"The credit thing may be a more serious blow than your house getting slummed."

Karl leaned against the wall in the bedroom while Jimmy surveyed the damage. Jimmy whistled. "This is gonna be costly," he said.

"Very."

"I'll help you clean it up. We'll haul out the broken stuff and put it in the garage for now."

"It's not your mess, you don't have to," Karl said.

"Yes I do have to. Now shut up and lend a hand. We better start with the kitchen. You'll have stuff growing in there if we don't get it cleaned up soon."

Karl followed his friend to the kitchen and mechanically helped to take up the food cartons. They found sponges and towels to clean up the floors, cabinets, and appliances. All the time he worked in silence, listening to Jimmy trying to cheer him up, while his heart grew heavier. His world was slap-ass crazy now. There was no making sense of it.

There was no way out.

23

"The truth is really an ambition which is beyond us."

Peter Ustinov, International Herald Tribune

"Something funny's going on."

Cam gave Robyn a look and replied, "Something funny's always going on. Who's into the nose candy this time?"

"That's not what I mean. We may have a minor drug problem with one or two of the cast and don't we always? But this is about something else."

"Well, what's it about?"

They sat together hunched over a table at the House of Blues, just about the hottest nightspot in Hollywood. One of the phrases you heard in this town above all others was, "You like the blues?" It was as if you couldn't really be part of the showbiz scene if you didn't love blues music. Robyn could take it or leave it. Cam cared little about music, except for maybe old Jefferson Airplane tunes, Mick Jagger, and the Beatles.

"Can we get outta here and go some place quieter?" Robyn asked. She liked the club all right, but not enough to try to have a private conversation over the noise of the crowd. She saw famous faces peering through the subdued light and was afraid one of them might overhear what she had to tell Cam.

"Sure, c'mon, I'll take you somewhere. We never should have met here in the first place. You know how I hate being seen. And don't ask me if I like the blues."

Cam led her through the mass of nightclubbers, but it took them ten minutes to reach the door. Stars and gutsy wannabes, agents, producers, and directors had to say hello to them, had to kiss the air around their faces, had to shake their hands. No opportunity to hobnob with the powerful and famous could be allowed to pass.

Cam drove her a few miles away to one of his favorite hangouts, a bar called the Roost. A movie star wouldn't be caught dead in it. As they entered, he said, "Look, no one to maul us! Isn't this joint a beauty?"

Robyn didn't like Cam's low-class dives. They always made her nervous enough to slip off her jewelry and stuff it into her purse. But at least this place would afford them anonymity and that's just what they needed tonight.

After they had ordered their drinks and were ensconced in a back booth that sported curling gray duct tape over the rips in the plastic, Robyn said, "Something weird's happening, Cam."

"Okay, tell Papa." He took a slug of his beer straight from the bottle. Robyn watched his throat work as he swallowed. She had to admit he fit into this kind of bar much better than he did at the House of Blues.

"You know my ex-husband, Karl?"

"Don't think I've had the pleasure. He must be one crazy son of a bitch to divorce you." Cam grinned widely.

"I divorced him, but that's not the point." She gave him a wolfish smile. "Karl runs a company over in Burbank. He works with new actors, getting them good press, helping them find agents who will take them on, that sort of thing."

"Yeah?"

"Well, he's having a big problem now."

"What's that, too much pussy?"

Robyn frowned. "Sometimes you're too crude to live.”

“I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. Not about a husband of yours."

"He's not my husband and I don't care how much he gets laid, but this is serious, Cam, I want you to listen to me."

Cam bobbed his head. He drank again from the beer bottle, then said, "Go on, I'm listening."

"Karl started having a problem in his life about the same time we started filming the movie. First someone got into his house and left a mash note. The same night he was almost run off the freeway, someone playing tag with him. Then his office was broken into and . . ." Here she hesitated because until this point Cam wouldn't have made the connection. She paused to give weight to the matter and to have Cam's complete attention . . . "they threw blood all over his front waiting room."

Cam's eyes opened a little wider. "No shit," he said.

"That's not all. Every single scene we've shot so far has happened to Karl."

"What the hell."

"Last night he came home to find his house vandalized. It was torn up good and proper. Everything, just like we shot yesterday. Right down to the note left behind for him."

Now Cam looked shocked. He clutched the beer bottle in one hand, but had forgotten all about drinking from it. "Who's doing it?" he asked. "Someone trying to sabotage my film? What asshole's doing some harebrained fucking thing like this? I'll fire the motherfucker first thing in the morning!"

"Karl doesn't know who it is."

"What do you mean he doesn't know who it is? He must know. It has to be someone on the set who gets a copy of the daily script scene. It could be any one of them . . ."

"Cam, listen. Karl doesn't know about Pure and Uncut. No one knows about it but us, the crew, the actors. Remember?"

Realization hit. "Oh shit. That's right. It's not in the trades. And you haven't told Karl about it?"

She shook her head. "If I do that, he's going to come around. He's going to disrupt shooting. He might even bring the police."

"No fucking way. Not on my set."

"I told you. We have a problem."

"You're not going to tell him, are you? It'll fuck up everything we're doing. You tell him, we'll get shut down. Why would anyone take the goddamn script and use it for a roadmap to stalk your ex? What kind of wacko would do such a stupid-ass thing? It's a fucking script! It's . . . it's tinsel and cheap celluloid. . ." He was spluttering.

"I know. I think someone's lost it. Someone has a grudge against Karl and she's using the script scenes to get at him.”

“It's a woman? Like in the script?"

Robyn shrugged. She pushed aside her screwdriver. The orange juice was making her sick. The bartender hadn't used good vodka. "Karl had a few affairs. Before and after our marriage. Not during, or at least I don't think so. But he's been involved with a few women. Some of them work for us on this picture."

"Who? I'll talk to them."

"You can't do that."

"I, by God, can do that. I'll threaten them or fire them. I'll stop this right now before it goes any further."

Robyn looked at her hands on the table. "He dated Olivia once."

"Olivia! Jesus Christ, I can't fire Olivia. I can't even threaten to fire Olivia. I need her."

"That's right, you do. We do."

Cam ran both hands through his hair. It now stuck up and out from his head, a black halo. "Who else? Go ahead and tell me everything."

"Catherine had an affair with him. It was right after we split up. He was on the rebound and she was there to catch him. I think it lasted a few months before they broke it off."

"Not Catherine."

"And Marilyn was a client of his at one time. It was a while ago. I heard she put the make on him and I'm not sure if he took her to bed, but he probably did. She left soon after I heard the rumors about them being an item."

Each name Robyn gave out caused Cam to shrink back. He now sat completely against the booth, his mouth hanging slightly open. These women were the backbone of his film. His assistant director, his actresses.

"There might be more," Robyn said, hurrying to get all the bad news out before she lost her nerve. "Karl is . . . well, he's a good-looking man, and he's got a lot of power to help actors. You know how women swarm to men in this town with a little bit of authority. I don't know if even some of our extras or bit players might not have had a thing with him."

Cam jerked toward the table and leaned across to her. "That's it, then. We don't say anything. We're not fucking private investigators, we can't be responsible for ex-husbands and people who go off their nut. We start sniffing around our people, they're going to find out why. The news will leave the set and travel. The nondisclosure form won't stop something like this from spreading. The cops will get called in and we'll find our schedule loused up. You understand?"

"I was afraid you'd say that."

You never saw it coming when Cam exploded. His temper was like lightning striking from out of a clear blue sky. "You can't tell him about this! If you do then everything we've worked for goes down the drain. If you really suspect someone, if you get a direct line on this, you can try to talk to the person privately, but you better be goddamn sure of yourself before you do it. If you're the one who burns down this project, we both get scorched. I'm not letting anything stop my production, you got that? Nothing!"

"You're right, Cam. We can't let this out. We can't endanger the film."

"Okay, we agree on this. If you tell Karl what's happening, if you clue in people involved with the film, it's all over for us. I don't know what loony's out there running around mimicking our scenes, but there's really nothing we can do about it.” "There's just one more thing, Cam." She could see from the red blush creeping over his face that his blood pressure was up, but she had to tell him. If he blew a heart valve and collapsed right in front of her, then she'd know she had gone too far.

"What is it?"

"The end of the script. Remember how it ends?"

He sat back again, slumping into the booth. It was as if she'd taken a two by four and knocked the wind out of him. The end of the script.

Murder. Bloody, chilling, and violent.

The stalker killed the main character. Olivia killed Landry.

Which meant someone probably meant to do the same to Karl LaRosa.

Robyn knew that neither she nor Cam might be able to live with that. Making a movie was one thing, but standing by while a real crime was committed was another entirely.

Robyn had always loved Karl.

24

"Alcohol is barren. The words a man speaks in the night of drunkenness fade like the darkness itself at the coming of day."

Marguerite Duras, Alcohol

When Robyn left him, Cam sat for a while alone in the booth of the Roost, drinking beer and bemoaning the risks involved in the life he had chosen to follow. Wasn't it enough he had scraped by in this town when he was trying to get his first film off the landing pad? He must have walked off two layers of shoe leather and pulled half his hair out. He had to grow a whole new persona to deal with the assholes with the money in this fucking town. He had to play the same brand of hardball. He had sacrificed everything to get started as a writer and director.

Now this.

If what was happening to Karl LaRosa found its way to the trades, his film would be notorious. Not only that, but everyone and his brother would read the whole plot of his movie before it ever got canned or distributed. Hell, before it ever even finished shooting. Down the rathole of failure, that's where his project would go. Sliding down into the crud where failed films dropped off the face of the earth. The studio wouldn't just shelve it. They'd destroy every copy.

"Mind if I sit with you, baby?"

She was his age, not young, and overdressed for the joint, a little black skimpy number that clung to her ripe body like a banana peel.

The eye shadow was blue and made her look like a kewpie doll. The lipstick was pink, dime store variety. The jewelry was fake and glittery. She reminded him of a jungle predator, one of the fast toothy ones, maybe a jaguar or a black leopard and he liked her immediately.

"No, I don't mind," he said, knowing she was just what the doctor ordered. "Have a seat."

She slid in across from him, where Robyn had sat earlier. She smiled, showing a row of crooked, lightly stained bottom teeth. Nicotine. She took out a cigarette now from a small gold lame purse. She waited for him to light it for her. He didn't have a lighter, didn't smoke. He shrugged and said sorry, but he took her lighter from where it peeked from out of her purse flap and flicked it, holding the flame to the end of the tobacco.

"I make movies," he said while she inhaled.

"Yeah, ain't everyone doing that? I happen to have been in a few movies myself. Once upon a time."

"Sunset Boulevard?" It was a joke and not a nice one. It was a film about a faded, old, really old, movie star losing her mind.

"You trying to be funny?"

Oh, she knew her movies now, didn't she? She couldn't be fooled. He was sorry to have said something so cruel. She was too smart to put down that way. Sometimes his mean spirit found itself abashed when confronted with the human results of his loose, killing mouth.

"I'm sorry," he said, "you obviously don't deserve that. So what kind of movies were you in? I don't remember seeing you, I'm sorry to say. I bet you were a knockout."

Her shoulders rose a little, then fell. "I don't want to name them. They weren't much."

Porno then, Cam thought. Actresses always reeled off their credits, no matter how bad the movies, unless they had played in porno. Then they didn't.

"What's your name? I'm Cam."

"Rhonda."

"What you drinking, Rhonda? And will you go home with me after we lift a few?" He gave her the full grin, the one the women seemed to always fall for.

Her wide eyes lowered in schoolgirl fashion, trying to say to him, "I'm shy, don't treat me ugly," but nevertheless she nodded. Surprising himself, Cam found her sweet and vulnerable. Nothing like how she looked. Imagine finding a sweet girl beneath an older woman in too much makeup and too little fashion taste. Life was a wonder, it really was.

"Rhonda, I need to talk to someone about my movie, you mind listening a while?"

She took a puff from the cigarette. "No, I don't mind. I'd like that. Maybe I can help."

She would help him all right, she would keep him warm in his bed later, and she might even be a good lay. He would tell her he had serious problems on his set, but he wouldn't tell her exactly what. He had to be circumspect in these places sometimes. The women he romanced all knew how to pick up a phone and dial in news to the columnists. There was a little money in it. Too tempting not to spill secrets.

He ordered her a drink, rum and Coke, and they sat in the booth with him talking and her listening until he felt better. And then he took her to a motel where he treated her gently, with gentlemanly concern.

Her skin, beneath the clothes, was smooth as satin, and she kissed him with the abandon of a young schoolgirl. He loved her smell—damp and musky, the intimate scent of a woman on the verge of losing her looks and a reason to go on. He even loved the blue eye shadow glinting at him from her closed lids while he mounted her. He made love to her the way a husband of many years might, taking his time, relishing the long, slow moments that he took to make her trust him, love him, really love him.

She was a treasure hidden behind tacky packaging. He told her how wonderful she was. She moaned and planted a trail of hot kisses along his neck then she took one of his hard nipples into her mouth to tongue. An exquisite thrill ran down his chest to his groin.

"Do that again," he told her.

He threw back his head and allowed the sensation to take over his mind. Nothing in the world existed but the woman named Rhonda with her hands behind his back and her mouth on his nipple and her soft sweetness lying open beneath him.

This would be one of the best nights he had experienced in ages.

Sometimes he got lucky that way.

25

"'For your own good' is a persuasive argument that will eventually make a man agree to his own destruction."

Janet Frame, Faces in the Water

Olivia Nyad hurried up the walk to Karl's front door. Tired and worn from her day on the set, she looked her age. Fine spidery wrinkles radiated from the corners of her eyes. Her mouth drooped and her movements, usually swift and youthful, tonight were sluggish.

She rang the bell, then stood nervously putting a cigarette out on the brick at her feet. When Karl opened the door, she swept into his arms, a dramatic heroine. She could see herself, as if she stood back watching a scene being shot. That's how she lived her life, viewing it from the outside to see if it passed muster. She thought everyone else did the same. Calculating gestures and actions, she believed, were part of being human.

He gave her a brief hug then took her by the shoulders to move her back so he could see her.

"What are you doing here, Olivia?"

"I heard about your house. I couldn't believe it and had to come by to see for myself." She pushed past him to the interior of the house and stopped, surveying the dregs of the damage that had not been cleaned up. The living room was empty of furniture, the walls had dents in the plaster, the sliding glass door opening to the outside was still a starred wide sheet of safety glass.

"The glazier can't show up until tomorrow," Karl said, noticing how she stared at the glass.

She turned around to Karl who had followed her inside. "Where's your furniture?"

"It had to be taken away. It was all broken and ruined. I haven't been anywhere to order new yet."

"Who the hell did this to you?"

"Someone who must hate me with all her heart."

Olivia didn't like the way he had said that. She didn't like he way he was looking at her. She felt defensive, as if he were making a silent accusation. "Karl, I told you once already that I'm not responsible for what's happening to you. I don't know why you keep suggesting I have something to do with it. You really think I'd come in your house and do . . . this?" She swept her hand around at the empty, desolate room.

"I guess not," he said softly, moving around her to the kitchen. "Do you want something to drink? I just laid in new stock. Everything in the cabinets had been busted and spilled on the floors and walls."

"You have scotch?"

"Sure."

She stood at the end of the counter and watched him pour it over ice cubes. He knew she took it over the rocks.

"I hope you don't mind the plastic cup. I haven't had time to buy dishes either."

She looked around. There was a dent on the front of the refrigerator door as if someone had kicked it. There were holes in the walls and streaks of rust and yellow that must have been made from splattered food. One cabinet door below the sink hung from the hinges.

She took the clear plastic cup and said, "I don't mind what I drink from."

A silence fell between them while they both sipped from their drinks. Finally Olivia blurted, "Karl, I wouldn't hurt you for the world, you know that, don't you? I loved you once and I was hurt when we broke up, but you can't believe I'd get in here and do this thing, do you?"

He rubbed a hand over his eyes. He looked older, weary unto death. There were new lines on his face and a darkness of surrender in his eyes she had never seen there before. She almost moved into his arms again to hold him. He had always brought out her maternal instinct. She wanted to baby him, to rock and soothe his furrowed brow and tell him everything was going to be all right.

He said, "I don't know what to think anymore, Olivia. I don't think it's you. No, I don't think that."

Even though he tried to sound sure of himself, Olivia detected the hesitation. He really did think she might be the guilty party? She felt something inside her shrink. Tears formed in her eyes and she turned away from him.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" she asked.

"Tell me who's doing this," he said.

"I wish I could."

"Look, I've got something to show you." He had raised his voice and then he walked around her from the kitchen, across the empty living room. He was headed for his bedroom where they had spent many a lovely, long night in one another's arms. She could hardly follow him, her legs had suddenly grown so weak. The memory of being in Karl's arms, having him inside her, feeling his breath against her face, his lips upon hers . . . It was enough to cause her to grab the edge of the counter to keep her steady.

Goddamnit, she wasn't over him yet. She'd never get over him. Being in the same room with him made her want to fling herself against his chest, tear off his clothes, and tell him what a mistake he had made to leave her. No other man in her life had caused her to feel so deserted, so alone. She had taken lovers since her affair with Karl and none of them filled the empty hole in her heart left behind by him. She was a torch carrier. Just like the woman who must be trying to destroy him. And Karl knew that about her. No wonder she was a suspect.

He returned carrying a slip of notepaper. He thrust it at her. She put down the plastic cup and took it. She read the words inscribed there. She understood why he thought she might have written it. She did have a reputation for vengeance in her affairs, business and personal. They called her "Killer" as a joke. People feared going up against her or incurring her wrath. She never forgot a grievance or forgave it. She found a way sooner or later to repay her enemies and detractors two-fold.

She read the note over again before handing it back. "I didn't write that," she said, hoping he would believe her.

He stood holding the note, staring down at it. His face was caught in a grimace, as if he held something toxic and he had forgotten to don protective gloves. "Whoever this is, she's going to bring me down." He glanced up and looked her in the eyes. "The whole process is in motion. I just found out someone tinkered with my credit rating. Someone is getting word to my clients, new and old, warning them off me. I'm losing business every single day. I don't know how to fight it. This woman is invisible and it seems she's also invincible. I changed my locks. She found a way past them. I had my security system checked and fixed and rechecked. She disables it whenever she wants in. It's like I'm a soft target, Olivia. I'm wide open and nothing I do covers me."

She wanted to tell him that what was happening to him was from the script. From Pure and Uncut. But she couldn't do that, no matter how much she wished she could. Cam would drop her, hire a new lead, and re-film all her scenes. She knew Cam. His threats weren't idle when he had them sign the nondisclosure. She couldn't lose this part. Even for Karl.

Realizing her ambitions and career were more important than Karl's future made her flinch. She ought to hate herself, but she couldn't change, could she? She was Olivia Nyad, Hollywood star. Aging, losing her looks, and soon her screen appeal. This movie was the best thing that had come along in her entire career; she wouldn't give it up. She was Killer. She was one tough, determined broad, hallelujah. Unless Karl was about to be murdered, she didn't think she could confide to him the connection between the script and his troubles.

Naturally this meant someone involved with the picture was after him. Just as, in the film, she stalked the character Landry was playing. Despite how horrible the reality of it was, she had to admit the scheme was a clever one. If she knew who on the set might be doing it, she'd go to her and do something. But she had no more idea than did Karl.

The doorbell chimed and they both turned in that direction. Karl put the note on the counter and went to answer the door.

Olivia stood still, finishing off her scotch. She heard Robyn LaRosa's voice and knew it was time to go. She took up her car keys and walked toward them in the hall.

"I have to be on my way, Karl." She didn't mean to sound so cold, but now Karl had his ex here, she was superfluous. Even though Robyn was the film's producer and main investor, she didn't like her worth shit. She expected the feeling was mutual. Hiring her for the lead was a business decision.

Nothing in Hollywood was personal when it came to money and making a success of a project.

"Oh, hi, Olivia." Robyn gave her a worried look. Olivia wanted to say, No, I didn't tell him he's living out the script, but she couldn't say that, of course. She said hello, thanks for the drink, Karl, and fled from his house, her cheeks burning.

She was still jealous. She had had nothing good to say about Karl's ex-wife when she and Karl had been lovers. She had nothing better to say for her now, despite Cam's project. She had to get out of here. She never should have come at all.

~ * ~

"What was Olivia after?"

Karl returned to the kitchen counter for the scotch bottle. He poured himself another and found a new cup for Robyn. It seemed tonight every woman he'd ever been with might drop by his house. "She heard my place had been torn up. She came by to tell me how sorry she was. That's what you're here for, isn't it? To tell me how sorry you are?"

"Do I hear you getting into a mood?" She took the scotch from him and looked around the empty living room.

"Oh, I'm in a mood, all right. I'll get over it, of course, just as soon as my stalker dies and goes to hell."

"Oh Karl."

"Well, what kind of mood did you expect to see me in, Robyn? Am I supposed to be throwing an open house party?"

He stood at the broken sliding glass doors with his back to her. He still felt jangled by Olivia's visit. He never knew when Olivia was 'natural' or acting. It was the reason they had split up. He had never really gotten close to Olivia, not the real Olivia, not the one who was naked and maskless.

Come to think of it, he hadn't much more insight into Robyn. He'd been married to her seven years and knew as little about her real self as he did Olivia's. Not that Robyn acted all the time, but she was closed off to him in all her deep vital places she kept secret. When he had brought it up, she hadn't understood what he meant. Or pretended she didn't. Their marriage, especially toward the end, had felt like ten miles of rough road. And he drove down it in a Model-T. Alone.

"Why don't I take you out to dinner?" she said from behind him.

"I'm not hungry. I ate a late lunch."

"Won't you even look at me, Karl? You're making me feel . . ."

He whirled. "What? Guilty? Are you guilty, Robyn? Have you begun haunting my life to try to drive me crazy, or what? Just what is the deal anyway?"

When he had first turned she looked shocked, but now her features had all changed to stony surfaces. She might be a flat rock on a river bed. An immovable mountain. He could never get through to her and this time was no exception.

"Thanks for reminding me why I left you," she said, setting her plastic cup on the counter and adjusting her shoulder bag. "I don't know why I bother giving a damn about what happens to you anymore."

She was halfway to the door before he fell apart. He went after her and grabbed one arm, swinging her around to face him. "You don't know what it's like," he said. "I don't have a life anymore. I feel like a goddamned puppet manipulated by invisible strings. Whoever is doing all this to me just blithely goes ahead from one tactic to another and I'm helpless against her."

"You don't have to take it out on me."

"I know, I know I shouldn't, but it just comes boiling up. I can't seem to stop it. If I didn't vent once in a while I don't know what . . ." He let his sentence go unspoken. He let go of her arm and looked back to the starry planes of the shattered glass doors that now reflected moonlight.

This had been such a nice, comfortable home. Now it was a shattered and eerily empty mausoleum.

"I didn't go in to my office today," he said finally. "I had to be here to direct a crew I hired to take out the damaged furniture. Every piece they hauled off the premises made me angrier. By the time they were finished, I must have looked like an enraged bull. The guy collecting the money for the work was Hispanic, could hardly speak English. Two of his workers had to actually give him a little push from behind before he'd come up to me to take the cash. I guess they thought I was going to blow up at them and scream or go nuts or something."

"I'm sorry, Karl. I'm trying to imagine how bad this is for you. I really do want to help if I can."

"But how?" he asked. "How can anyone help me?"

"For one thing, you have to tell me who you suspect. Maybe going over a list of the women you . . ."

"With you?"

"Yes, with me. Look, we've been divorced a long time. I'm not going to get jealous at this late date over your affairs. That's all over. I'm trying to be your friend. If you'll let me."

If he had had a chair nearby, he would have sagged into it. He had drunk too much scotch without eating anything. His stomach was on fire and the inside of his head felt fuzzy, as if moss had grown over the lobes of his brain while he wasn't paying attention.

He slowly shook his head. "I can't do it tonight. I'm too whipped out. Maybe we can meet for lunch or dinner or something. I could use some help, I know that."

"All right, Karl." She patted his arm. "All right, not tonight. You should go to bed early, get some rest. Do it for your own good. I'll call you, set up a time we can meet. I'm on the set every day, but maybe one night we'll have dinner or you can come over to my place."

"Thanks, Robyn. I'm sorry about what I said before. You just happened to be around at the wrong time. Olivia didn't help things."

After he shut the door on Robyn, he leaned against it, forehead touching wood. No point in locking it, he thought. He had nothing left to steal and as for the stalker, he couldn't keep her out when she wanted in anyway. Let her, by God, come in while he was sleeping! He'd use his gun on her. He'd drill her full of holes! He put his index finger to his lips and blew, then laughed aloud. He'd seen too many movies. He couldn't drill straight holes in a board with a drill, much less kill someone with a gun.

Jimmy Watz had brought over a folding cot for him to sleep on until he could find time to order a new bed. Tonight he wouldn't even shower first, he'd just strip down and lie in the cot drinking scotch until he fell asleep. Surely tomorrow would be a brighter day. At least the woman screwing with his life hadn't yet really tried to physically harm him. There had been that early instance of bumper tag on the freeway, but it wasn't so serious. More of a playful game, that's all it had been.

He must be grateful for small favors.

He staggered toward the bedroom, surprised he couldn't walk straight, then laughed at himself again, remembering he had to rescue the bottle of scotch from the kitchen counter first. He turned and retraced his steps, found the bottle, and swung it by the neck as he made his way toward the cot through the shadow-pooled rooms.

It was for his own good that he go to sleep. Robyn was right. For his own good . . .

He sat on the side of the cot, downing one more drink before lying back on the pillow. It was the last he knew. Oblivion took him before he had time to undress.

26

"I have spent more than half a lifetime trying to express the tragic moment."

Marcel Marceau, The Guardian, London

This was a series of scenes that Cam knew would really give a theater audience a chance to gasp and scream. He wanted it done right. Everything must be executed perfectly.

Four cameramen from different angles were filming the action. The stunt car drivers for Olivia and Jackie were buckled into their seats and revving the motors. They were filming on a closed section of the freeway just after sunrise for the best light. The other cars' drivers were in position on the track and ready. Cam had instructed each one individually on what he wanted from the shots. He didn't want to have to film it ten different times and have to use up too many extra crash vehicles.

This wouldn't be a car chase the likes of which every movie-goer had seen ad nauseam a million times. Cam wanted this in extraordinary close-up, zooming in on the car crashes, a few overhead helicopter shots for wide view, and a choreographed chase that in 3-D would make the audience grab hold of their seats and press make-believe brake pedals on the floor.

He took a breath, raised his hand, and when he dropped it he yelled, "Go!"

It was a ballet in speed, screeching brakes, spin-outs, skewed guardrails, and crunching metal. He was going to get it in one! Just one take! He began to jiggle around like a man needing to go to the bathroom, watching it go down. The stuntman driving Olivia's car came up behind the Mercedes that Jackie was supposed to be in and rammed it so hard it left the middle lane and shot like a bullet into the far right lane. The traffic in the two crossed lanes stuttered, swerved, crashed, all on cue.

Cam began to clap his hands with each impact until he was literally swaying and cheering as the chase progressed. He sat in a chair raised twenty feet above the ground by a hydraulic arm so that he could see the action unreel down the highway. He had no idea if the trailing cameramen were getting the best shots, but the drivers were doing stupendous jobs.

Olivia's driver caught up with the Mercedes, rammed it again, this time from the side. Once more. Then the Mercedes leapt ahead and spun around cars in the way, passing them at eighty-ninety miles an hour. Now it was tricky. Both cars had to weave in and out of lane traffic like working out a maze. They hadn't rehearsed it. Model cars had been set up on a table to show how Cam wanted it filmed. The drivers carried it all in their heads and if just one of them fucked up, the whole shot was cooked.

It went beautifully. Cam grinned so hard his face hurt. When at last the car with Jackie's driver in it spun out, doing a three-sixty, and slammed into the guardrail before breaking through and ratcheting down an incline onto another feeder road before straightening out, Cam felt like spreading out his arms and flying right out of the chair into sunny sky.

The cars all slowed and turned, heading back toward the beginning of the highway where the production crew was set up. Cam motioned for his director's chair to be lowered to ground level.

Robyn came over, her hand over her eyes in order to block the sun. "That was a good one, right?"

"It was spectacular! It was moonlight and roses. It was caviar! It was sex all night with a goddess." He turned and waved at the vehicles so the drivers could tell he was pleased.

"Oh, I wouldn't go that far," Robyn said.

Catherine came to them, a clipboard in her hands. "I've got Olivia and Jackie ready to film the inside car scenes. Is it a go? You think the freeway shots worked?"

Robyn said, "He's ecstatic. He thinks it went better than sex with a goddess." She smirked at Cam, but he wasn't listening. He was on the walkie-talkie with his cameramen.

"Great," Catherine said. She stood by, waiting for Cam to instruct her on the interior car shots with the actors. She was surprised when Robyn leaned over and whispered, "Have you seen Karl lately?"

She wondered what the hell Karl had to do with today's shooting. They were too busy to gossip about an old shared lover. "Not lately, why?"

"I was just wondering."

"But why?" Catherine frowned.

Cam moved off from them, involved in technical aspects he had to attend to. Catherine knew she'd just have to wait until he was ready for the actors. Then he'd come back to her and together they'd set it up.

"You haven't talked to him then, not at all?" Robyn asked.

"No. What's going on, Robyn? Why are you bringing up personal matters like this on the set?"

Robyn shrugged and looked off at the stunt drivers getting out of the cars, taking off their helmets and wriggling out of their fireproof suits. "It's nothing," she said. "Karl's had a stretch of trouble . . ." She looked straight at Catherine again. . . "And you haven't heard about it, huh?"

Catherine shook her head.

"Never mind, then. I just thought since you two were together a while, he might have called you."

"Well, now you've got me worried about him. What kind of trouble has he had?"

"Never mind, I said. If Karl wants you to know, he'll get in touch with you."

"Yeah, right." Catherine tried not to let the sarcasm creep into her tone, but Robyn had a bossy, icy quality about her that often caused Catherine to act distant and sulky herself.

Robyn walked off without a by-your-leave. Catherine stood holding the clipboard and a pen, watching the other woman's sexy walk. How she could look like someone who stepped out of a Playboy centerfold shoot while being on location in this early morning heat, Catherine couldn't understand. There were packets of sweat under her own arms and her hair had frizzed in the morning damp into tight little wiry balls. She knew she must look like an unkempt poodle.

Jesus, nobody ever looked that good off camera. And Robyn wasn't even an actress. It was a crying shame she didn't wear jeans and running shoes like the rest of the folks on the set and at location shoots. It had to be absolute murder staying cool in silk slacks.

Catherine chewed on the top of her ballpoint pen while she waited for Cam to return. She bit down hard on the plastic cap, thinking over what Robyn had said about Karl. Maybe she should call him. See how he was holding up. He probably had a new girlfriend who was putting him through the wringer.

He always had a new girlfriend.

27

"Death is a shadow that always follows the body."

English Proverb

Karl spent two more days away from the office trying to oversee the repairs to his home and the installation of new furniture. He spent half of one day consulting with a different home security company who guaranteed no one would be able to disable the new system. "For this kind of dough," Karl said, "my house better be impregnable."

After he wrote out all the checks and sent home the workmen and delivery people, he sat down on the new, dark, paisley-printed sofa, put his feet up on the new coffee table, and smiled at the makeover. Hell, it had been a few years since he'd refurbished the house anyway. It was due for an overhaul. Not that he could forgive the woman who cost him so much anguish and money. But there were upsides to everything, even vandalism. You just had to look at it properly, he told himself.

Now it was early morning, close to seven AM and he had to get back to his office in Burbank to see how many more clients had walked out on him. His secretary Lois was getting worried. His assistant showed signs of deep stress. The mood at the office was downbeat and spiraling toward sullen. He'd stop off at a florist on the way in and buy huge sprays of fresh flowers. Lois could place them all over the office and maybe that would cheer everyone up a little. And he'd order in lunch from the Italian spaghetti place he liked. A treat for everyone—deep-dish pizza or maybe the delicious spinach lasagna. He had to let his people know things were going to be all right.

And they were. He'd make it all right. He'd go back through all his old affairs again and speak to the women. He'd ferret out which one had gone off the deep end and see that she stopped this harassment. Surely he would be able to tell from looking in a woman's eyes how mad she was. Anyone capable of the damage his house had sustained had to be walking the razor's edge.

He was on the freeway, traffic beginning to thicken the closer he got to the Burbank exit. He hadn't been watching his rearview mirror when the jolt came. The Jaguar lurched forward a car length and the steering wheel literally flew out of his hands. His head was whipped back. He let out a gasp. He grabbed the wheel just before ramming the lane separator wall.

"God almighty," he said beneath his breath. He looked in the rearview and side mirrors. Behind him, perhaps three car lengths away, was a white Ford, older model, large, maybe a Continental. It was gaining again. He tried to see the driver, but the sunlight sheeted the windshield of the other car with opaque gold. Hell, it might be a demon or a gargoyle driving instead of a woman, for all he knew.

He stomped the gas pedal and began looking in the lanes to his right for space to move over. He'd get off the freeway at the next exit. He'd call the cops at the first service station he found.

The Ford rammed him again, but this time Karl was ready for it. His hands gripped the laced leather covering on the Jaguar's steering wheel so hard they felt glued down. He had tried to hit a burst of speed in order to avoid the collision from behind, but it was too late.

Suddenly he was slammed forward again, his head banging the headrest with a popping sound. His vision went all out of focus and he couldn't tell if he was in his lane or not. When he could see straight again, he realized he was swerving into the lane next to him and the car there taking up the space screeched its brakes trying to avoid being hit.

Now Karl screamed out, believing he was about to die in a fiery crash. He swung the wheel hard left, avoiding the other car by millimeters.

He looked in the rearview. The white Ford was gaining for the third time. The front end of the car was smashed up pretty good, which made Karl realize his own car must look like a crushed tin can in the rear.

Upping his speed to over a hundred miles an hour, Karl passed the car in the right lane, the one he'd almost hit, and swerved in front of it. He saw the next two lanes over to the right were pretty busy—cars, pickup trucks, a semi. He couldn't get over yet. He pressed the accelerator and the speedometer inched up to one hundred twenty. He had passed the wolf pack of vehicles and found a little area of empty lanes.

Sweat rolled down his face. He could feel his heart rocketing around like a loose pinball. He passed over into the next lane right. He saw the Ford, two, four, then five cars behind, doing the same. Shifting lanes. Relentless.

"Oh god," Karl whispered, so scared he thought he might black out. "Get me out of this," he prayed. "Ohgodgetmeoutofthis."

He had one more lane to cross over so he could reach an exit and a feeder lane. There was a farm truck with an old tin camper on the back in his way. If he sped up to pass it, he'd be blocked by another wolf pack.

He dropped back, hoping to scoot over behind the farm truck. Then the white Ford was behind him. He still couldn't see the driver. They were headed east, the sun square in front of them, lancing off the other car's windshield, making the driver invisible.

Opening! Karl quickly changed lanes, saw an exit up ahead. It didn't look more than a quarter mile distant. If only he could . . . The Ford rammed him and the wheel again flew from his fingers like a startled bird winging away to freedom. The Jaguar angled to the left into the left lane's traffic just coming up on him. Cars hit their brakes, swerved and hit other cars in lanes next to them. Before Karl could straighten out the Jag, he heard metal bending and the sound of explosions as half a dozen cars and trucks slammed into one another.

Now the Ford was in the lane left of Karl. He looked over, waiting for the front end of the Ford to clear his midsection, trying to see the driver. Before the big front grill came even with his door, Karl saw it shift like a gear clicking into place. It was going to sideswipe him.

Karl didn't know what to do, step on the gas or the brake. He didn't have time to do anything. The Jag flew from the lane onto the emergency stopping pavement, hit the gravel lining, and went airborne over a short ditch. It landed hard on the incline, the tires digging in, and spun onto the feeder road that was mercifully empty. Karl hit the brakes so hard his foot slammed into the carpet. The Jag burned rubber on the feeder, the back end whipping around until the car had done a full circle and shuddered to a stop. The engine stalled.

Karl hung over the wheel, breathless. "Goddamn," he muttered. "Oh shit."

He craned his head to look for the white Ford but it had vanished. The driver must have gone on down the freeway. It was already out of sight. Karl hadn't even had a chance to watch for the license plate.

Cars had slowed and stopped behind Karl on the feeder. They took turns honking their horns at him. Karl reached with trembling fingers to the key in the ignition and started the car.

He didn't realize his head had bumped the front windshield and that he was bleeding from the front of his scalp.

He didn't know he'd even been hurt until one side of his face felt wet and he reached up to wipe off what he thought was sweat and brought his fingers away blood red.

28

"The insane are always mere guests on earth, eternal strangers carrying around broken decalogues that they cannot read."

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Body made it to the studio gate just fifteen minutes late. Cam was going to throttle him, but no matter what degree of rant he got into—and he could get into some good ones—he'd get over it.

The effort on the freeway from Malibu to Burbank had taken time, it was so out of the way. Waiting not far from Karl's house, The Body had followed him from his block right onto the entrance ramp. This meant the day started before dawn. A full day's excitement and work and danger had been used up in mere hours.

Then after the rear bumper ramming and the last slam into the side of the Jag, The Body had to drop off the smoking, wrecked Ford in an alley in Hollywood where the other car was parked.

It all took time. It took finesse. It took such careful planning and a cunning performance.

And it involved courage. The Body might have been hurt trying to ram the Jag at those speeds. Or another car might have gone out of control and totaled out the Ford.

The Body quaked at the thought. It was as if a chill crept up the spine, ending with an electric shock at the base of the neck.

Working on the set after the long, hard hours of setting up Karl on the freeway was child's play, but it did demand attention. First to deal with Cam for being late, then with the other crew members who didn't seem quite with-it for some reason. Everything had to be shot over several times. A boom mike didn't work, one of the cameramen was off with a rampaging case of the flu, no one hit their marks, the lighting director argued with the prop people.

The day wore on endlessly, winding down finally like a battery-operated toy going on the blink. The Body said goodbye to everyone and left the studio lot as fast as possible.

Once safe at home, The Body went directly to the sensory deprivation room and locked the door. Felt in the dark for the leather chair. Sat and reclined with feet raised.

Breathed deeply of sin and covetousness and retribution. Luxuriated in replaying the early morning chase step-by-step, scene-by-scene. It was almost the way it had been filmed the day before. Very few differences, save for the lack of cameras, pacing vehicles, and little or no chance of harm.

Had Karl been hurt when he went hurtling down the embankment to the feeder lane? Had someone crashed into him or had the Jag landed on another car that happened to be passing by?

The Body hadn't been able to slow down enough to get a glimpse of the aftermath. Maybe The Body should have turned on the car radio on the way home to check for news of Karl LaRosa's death. If he'd died, they would have surely reported it. Karl was a man of power behind the scenes; he was a puppet master. He had groomed enough stars over the past ten years to make him newsworthy.

Well, The Body didn't turn on the radio, therefore there was no way to know if Karl were alive or dead or hospitalized. It was too early for him to be dead, but The Body had to take into consideration that any action mimicking the script of Pure and Uncut could result in murder. At any time. Things could always go wrong. They weren't being as carefully choreographed as they were on soundstages and location shootings. It was all up to chance whether Karl survived to the end of the script or not.

It would be a pity if he succumbed too soon, but it was his demise The Body meant to achieve, early in the game or late. It really didn't matter all that much.

The effect of the silence and impenetrable dark served to ease The Body from a frenzied state to one resembling peace. The face relaxed once the mask was tossed aside. The limbs fell loose. The eyes rolled back in the head, and visions of blood and destruction were let from out of the cage in the back hallway of the brain to go dancing down the synapses and neuron networks.

For another hour, until the timer signaled The Body must leave the deprivation room, madness reigned, gleeful and faceless as a mime on a street corner.

29

"Scratch a lover, and find a foe."

Dorothy Parker, Ballade of a Great Weariness

When Catherine Rivers called Karl's house after work on the set was finished for the night, Jimmy Watz answered the phone. "Can I speak to Karl, Jimmy?"

"Who is this? Catherine?"

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but Karl's having to stay overnight in the hospital. He was in a wreck and wound up with some stitches in his head."

"He was in a wreck?"

"Right. He said some joker ran him off the freeway this morning going in to work. He went down an embankment and onto a feeder lane. Luckily the feeder was empty at the spot where he ended up or he'd probably be dead."

"Oh, Jesus, Jimmy. Where is he? Is he going to be all right?"

"He's in General. They're keeping him for observation, but he's going to be all right. Had a long cut on his scalp and some bruises, that's about it. He's pretty shook up."

"Robyn told me Karl's been having a rough time. Could you fill me in?"

Jimmy hesitated a couple of moments and that made Catherine frown. "Jimmy? What's been going on? I want to know."

"Too much to tell you about over the phone." Jimmy was evasive. "Let's just say someone's got it out for him.”

“Who?"

Another pause. Jimmy finally said, "Karl doesn't know yet. Some damn nut, if you ask me. Tore up his house just a few days ago. Now tried to run him off the road."

"Thanks, Jimmy. I'm going to the hospital to see Karl. I'll talk to you later."

Catherine picked up her car keys from where she'd dropped them next to the phone. She called to her housekeeper to watch after Barb, she had to go out again. On the way to the hospital she couldn't help but notice the similarities between Karl's house being roughed up and his accident on the freeway today to the scenes they had recently filmed for Pure and Uncut. Some coincidence. It gave her a prickly feeling of foreboding. It was just too coincidental, wasn't it?

She found out from the hospital information desk where Karl's room was and took the elevator up. The door to 221 was closed. She pushed it open slowly, wondering if she might accidentally intrude on some kind of medical procedure or maybe an aide giving Karl a sponge bath. She was relieved to see it was a private room and Karl was alone.

"Hi there," she called cheerfully, having steeled herself for the worst. Karl's head looked like a bandaged melon. Both his eyes were blackened and an angry lump the color and size of a red rose swelled his left cheek.

He was sitting up in bed, propped by two pillows. He immediately muted the television set where the evening news was playing. He turned toward her as if his head were made of thin, fragile glass that might roll off his shoulders and break.

"Catherine. Who told you?"

"I called your house and Jimmy answered. He told me. I wanted to see for myself how you were." She approached the bedside and laid a hand over his on the mattress. He withdrew his hand from beneath hers. She gave him a slightly puzzled look. "You look beat up, I'm afraid."

"Everything from my neck up hurts," he said. "I was bleeding like a slaughtered hog when they brought me in. How are my eyes? Last I looked, I thought I had turned into a raccoon."

She shrugged and tried to smile. "Looks like you took a few too many one-two punches from a heavyweight contender. Did the doctors say you're going to be okay?"

He shifted on the sheets, trying to sit straighter. She automatically put her hands under his arm and lifted to help him. She could feel him stiffen and draw away a little. Maybe his ribs were bruised too. Just what was his problem with being touched by her?

"I can go home tomorrow. They're just keeping me to see if I'm going to fall into a coma and die or something." He grinned a little to show he was making a brave joke. "It's not a bad head wound. Got some stitches . . . oh, about fifty-two of them." He reached up and gingerly touched the bandage on his head. "These bruises are from being knocked around in the car, slamming my head into the windshield. No big deal. I'll live."

"Before I knew this happened," Catherine said, "Robyn told me you'd been having trouble and asked if I'd talked to you. Jimmy wouldn't tell me much about what's been going on. What's this about somebody busting up your house?"

Now he turned to face her, wincing as he did so. His color was the dull, washed gray of concrete so that the black eyes and raised red knob on his cheekbone stood out like garish blobs of paint. "You're pretending you don't know about this, right?"

"I'm not pretending anything, Karl. I didn't know anything until Robyn said something today."

"You know, you're the one who might have made my life work out. If we'd given it a chance," he added.

"Well, that was a long time ago. Why don't you tell me about the things going on in your life now?"

"That's just it, Cat. Someone from the past is out to gut me like a fish. And doing a damn good job of it, I might add."

"The person who ran you off the road today, you mean? Did you see him?"

His eyes narrowed down so there was no light at all reflected from them. It looked as if empty black eye sockets were trained on her.

"Sun kept me from seeing who tried to kill me today. But it's a her, not a him. Right, Cat? It's a her."

"A woman? Who do you know crazy enough to play tag on a freeway during rush hour?"

"You drive pretty good, as I remember."

She had felt that coming since she'd walked into the room. He was holding back, he wasn't his old self, and it had nothing to do with his injuries. "You think I tried to run you down? Karl, why would I do that?" Maybe he was suffering from some kind of mental lapse from hitting his head. She had heard of head injury patients acting out of character. This wasn't at all like Karl to be paranoid and accuse people of crazy things.

Now he glanced away and his mouth was set in hard lines. "Just come out and tell me if it's you, Catherine. Whatever you've got against me, we need to work it out."

"Karl? What's wrong with you? I didn't run you off the road this morning."

"Do you blame me for losing the babies? You got rid of them because of me, didn't you?" He sat straight up and grabbed her by the arms, pulling her in close. She shuddered, looking into his eyes. She saw rage there, enough for him to tear her head off if he wanted.

He said, low and threatening, "How can you think it was my fault? I didn't even know about the pregnancy. If you'd asked me to choose between our relationship and the lives of the unborn, I wouldn't have hesitated a second. I would have told you to spare the twins."

His words were a kick in the stomach that caused her to pull free his hands and step back from the bed in shock. "What are you talking about, Karl?"

"You didn't know I found out about the abortion? You had it two days before our second date. You must have thought I wouldn't want anything to do with a woman pregnant by another man, but would have been wrong. You didn't even say anything to me. Did you even bother to tell the father? Did he want to abort them too?"

Tears cascaded down Catherine's cheeks. She tried to bury her sorrow and the vile sickness that had risen in her to form a hard knot in her throat by pushing her head down, down, forcing her chin toward her chest.

"I have to get out of here . . ."

She whirled around and stumbled into the food stand, knocking a Styrofoam pitcher of ice water to the floor.

"You did it, Cat. I didn't do it. I didn't even know. Is that why you want to hurt me now? To get me back for something I didn't really do? Don't you see how unfair that is? Cat, talk to me!"

She stepped over the ice and the puddle of water, grabbed the door handle and pulled the heavy door toward her. Everything in her vision was clouded by a veil of tears. She heard Karl pleading with her at her back, but she was out the door now and away down the hall, stumbling, crying, wiping the wetness from her face, and furious now, pinwheeling down the hallway. She ran past the nurses' station to the elevator door.

She did hate him now. She hated him for making her remember, for making her rehash the morality of her decision. For making her feel like a hard and cruel woman who had no heart at all.

In the elevator, alone, she wiped the last of the tears from her face. She thought of Barbara, her little girl, of how much she loved her to distraction, would do anything for her, sacrifice anything.

She sucked in breath, hurried out of the elevator on the ground floor, and rushed from the building.

What he had said hurt because it pointed to the truth she didn't want to think about. She could have sacrificed one affair with a man, with Karl, for the twin children she had been carrying in her body. She had acted selfishly and without honor. She had aborted the fetuses for the worst reason of all—for the hope of a love that never materialized. She had lost all around.

Done it to herself.

But Karl was wrong. She didn't blame him for anything.

She had absolutely done it to herself.

30

"Hollywood money isn't money. It's congealed snow, melts in your hand, and there you are."

Dorothy Parker, Writers at Work

Karl looked straight ahead through the windshield of Lisa's car. She had taken the day off to pick him up from the hospital. She had been with him a few minutes when they'd brought him into emergency the day before. His face wasn't as black and purpled with bruises then. She flinched on seeing him this morning. He had to hold her close and reassure her before she stopped her anxious fidgeting around the room, gathering his things.

"Karl, why don't you let me drive you to my house? I don't think you should stay at your place until this gets resolved."

He tried to shake his head, but it hurt too much. "No, I'm going home. No one's going to run me out of my house. Whoever this is, she's not going to win. Not an inch."

Lisa turned left onto his road. "If she kills you, I guess that means she wins."

"No one's going to kill me. I'm going to start carrying my gun."

"That won't help much when you're in your car being bumped off the freeway."

"It'll help." Karl felt stubborn enough to hold out against any logic she might try on him. He wasn't moving out. He wasn't running. He wasn't going to give up his life or his career or his future over this.

He turned in the seat so he could see Lisa. "Have you talked to the garage that towed my Jag?"

"They left a message at your office. It's going to cost about six grand to repair the body damage. You wound up with two flats on the rear, too."

Karl kept silent, seething. He loved that car so much. It wasn't worth all sorts of body work, really, except for a sentimental old fool like himself. He'd rather have the older Jag than a new one. He'd have to pay the money for repair. If he said anything about this right now, he was afraid he'd start yelling and that would scare Lisa, the way he had scared and hurt Catherine last night. Unlike Catherine, who he suspected might be his stalker because it seemed to him she had the most motivation—as wrongheaded as it was—he really didn't want to upset Lisa any more than he had to.

"I'll need a loaner."

"I already handled that for you." She turned into his driveway and parked next to a blue Chevy Caprice.

"That?" he asked, indicating the Chevy.

"It's all they had."

"But it's so big and American looking."

She grinned over at him. "It's a Chevrolet, Karl, it's supposed to look like an American car."

"Well, I guess it might be more protection in freeway mishaps," he said, not quite kidding. "It was great of you to go to this much trouble to get me wheels."

She reached into her purse and produced the keys. He took them and held onto her hand, drawing her over to kiss her. For just a few moments the pain in his head went away and he felt at peace. "Thanks," he said. "Without you and Jimmy, I don't know what I'd do."

"Jimmy said he'd come by later, see how you are. He's working on the lot at Universal."

Karl kissed her again and opened the car door.

"You sure you should stay here, Karl? You won't reconsider?"

"You worry too much. I'll be fine." He didn't know if he believed that, but people had to lie sometimes just to keep everything square.

He let himself into the house before Lisa left the driveway. He shut and locked the door, engaged the alarm system.

His head hurt again and he needed to take one of the Tylenol 3 tablets prescribed by the doctor he'd picked up at the hospital pharmacy. He needed to call Lois and see how the office was doing. There would be a lot of calls to make.

And he needed a nap. He hadn't slept worth a damn in the hospital bed, nurses checking on him all through the night.

He touched the bandage around his forehead and then gently probed the swelling on his cheek.

He had to be so careful now. He had to watch his back at all times.

This must be what it felt like to be a foot soldier in a guerrilla war. You had to notice every leaf movement, the sound of every breaking twig. An enemy might hide in the shadow. Your life depended on being observant.

He had never been a soldier. He had never before been under attack. But he was learning fast what it took to survive.

When he went to open the cabinet in the kitchen to get a glass for water so he could take a pill, he saw the note.

He withdrew it and stood reading the words, heavy apprehension seeping into his bones.

I hear you survived. I'm so glad. I don't want to hurt you, Karl. You're my life. If something happens to you, I might as well be dead too.

Will you take me back now? Can you honestly tell me you're sorry for past transgressions and love me again?

Think about this before you answer. I'll be in touch to let you know what to do.

Karl ran his thumb over the string of Xs and Os that ended the note.

Perhaps this was his chance. If she let him meet with her or if he could leave a message somewhere, then he could watch to see her pick it up.

He'd have her. He'd have her good.

31

"In love, unlike most other passions, the recollection of what you have had and lost is always better than what you can hope for in the future."

Stendhal, De l'Amour

Robyn made reservations at the Phoenix restaurant in the Algonquin Hotel on Sunset for a party of four. The Phoenix used to be the hot spot for Hollywood stars, but these days it had been supplanted by trendier places like the House of Blues, Planet Hollywood, and the Universe. The Phoenix's lack of notoriety meant they could talk without a lot of interruption.

She wasn't sure she knew what she was doing, calling this meeting. But she owed it to Karl. She still loved him, though she couldn't live with him; no, of course not, never again. She needed to investigate how the others felt about him to see if she could ascertain a clue as to who was doing the stalking. She owed him that much.

As she drove through Hollywood, she thought of the time when she and Karl talked about the pressures on a person trying to make a career in show business. He had said, "Half my clients can't take it. They go a little batty. They can't take the discipline and the dedication it requires to make something of themselves in this town. Either that, or their dream is bigger than anything they might reasonably hope to come true. I don't have to tell you how many thousands come out here every year just to get disappointed. Some of them become eccentric or distant. They divorce themselves from reality in order to live with the rejection. It's why I'm in this business. To save as many of them as I can from that kind of black nothing of failure."

She had admired him so much for his belief in the possibility he might be a savior. But now she remembered what he'd meant when he'd talked about how rejection and despair turned some seekers after fame into ruined individuals. "What happens to them," she had asked Karl, "when they don't make it, say they've tried for years and they still don't get a break? What do they do?" This was her naive question before she herself tried to put together her first film project. Afterward, she knew all the answers.

"It's back to the salt mines," he had said. "If their dream was strong, losing it might kill whatever happiness in life they had hoped for. They'll go back home and nurse their wounds the rest of their lives. They're our Could've Beens and some of them are Should've Beens. But once they're off the treadmill and they've given up, it's over."

"No more hope for their names in lights," she had mused. "No more hope, in some cases, for anything meaningful ever again."

Perhaps that was what had happened to Karl's stalker. Maybe it was someone on the set besides the women she had invited tonight to the Algonquin. Someone who never really made it. It could be a grip or a gofer or a light director. It could be one of the cinematographers, editors, sound people. Women did many of those jobs on the set of Pure and Uncut. One of them might be a discarded lover Karl hardly remembered now. Most of them got copies of the script scenes. And the ones who didn't could have stolen one somewhere. A nondisclosure form didn't keep the script completely inviolate from the curious eyes of people working on the picture. She suspected even a few of the extras had found a way to weasel a look at the script.

She arrived at eight PM and took a table more or less out of the route of foot traffic. She was the first arrival. The Algonquin was a tiny place with a white exterior and not a lot going for it. The Phoenix was quiet and nearly empty on this weeknight. She ordered a pink Russian, just for the hell of it, and sipped while waiting for the others.

Olivia was the first to arrive. She was made up too heavily so that even the dim lights couldn't disguise that she was an older woman trying to pass for a younger version of herself. She wore an unflattering magenta-colored pants suit with wide legs and a plunging bodice jacket. She didn't look very pleased when she took a seat across from Robyn.

"I need to be getting ready for bed. Tomorrow's going to be a rough scene."

"I know and I appreciate you coming. I'll try not to keep you long." Robyn motioned for the waiter to take Olivia's drink order.

Marilyn and Catherine came in together, probably having arrived at same time in the lobby. They took their seats and gave their orders to the waiter who still stood around in a slight daze, recognizing Olivia's famous face.

"I haven't been here in ages," Catherine said.

"Well, I've never been here." Marilyn looked around appreciatively. "It's nice. Small. Quiet, but nice."

After they were seated and settled in, Robyn said, "I don't know how much all of you know about what's been happening to Karl, but I thought we needed to get together and talk about it." She decided it was best to launch right into the reason she'd called them together. They all really did need to get home to make it an early night. There was not much energy left over after working on the set from five in the morning until sundown.

"I know he's been getting notes and stuff," Marilyn said. Olivia cleared her voice and said, "His house was broken into and everything in it torn up."

"Really?" Marilyn turned to her. "I didn't know about that. Poor Karl's got a crazy on his hands."

"Catherine, have you talked with Karl yet?" Robyn asked.

She sat staring down at the napkin in her lap. "I didn't want to come here," she said. "Karl isn't a part of my life anymore."

"Well, he's not part of any of our lives as far as I know, but the circumstances surrounding what has happened to him force this meeting," Robyn said, pausing to look around at the other three women. "You know someone's following the script, stalking Karl."

Catherine now glanced up and her face was stony. "I noticed it. I went to see him in the hospital, thinking I could let him know I was sorry about his car accident, but I didn't know I'd have to stand there while he accused me for it. How many of you think I'm harassing Karl LaRosa?"

Her question was a challenge. Her voice had risen as she spoke and the others were staring at her.

"Look," Robyn said, "let's not get into a hissy fit about what Karl does or does not think. He's working without all the facts, isn't he? He doesn't know the stuff happening to him follows the script almost to the letter. He doesn't know the four of us, women who used to be in his life, are working on that movie."

"Someone has to tell him," Marilyn said. She was about to say more, but their drinks were delivered. She drank from her glass of beer before continuing. "I hadn't heard about his house. Why was he in the hospital?"

Robyn looked at her uneasily. "You don't know he was run off the road and almost killed?"

"Well, god, no, I didn't know that! How bad was he hurt?" The other three women exchanged glances.

"Hey, you don't think I'm the one doing stuff to Karl, do you? I swear I didn't even know all of it."

"I didn't call us together to throw blame. I was hoping to be reassured that none of us would do these horrible things to Karl. He could have been killed in that wreck." Robyn didn't want this to turn into a guilt fest.

"Then why did you call us together?" Olivia asked. "It wasn't to treat us to dinner, I imagine. Although I'm starving. That handsome waiter making googoo-eyes at me comes back over here, I'm ordering hors d'oeuvres. Who likes stuffed mushrooms?"

"I wanted to discuss what we're going to do about it," Robyn said, directing the conversation back to Karl and ignoring the mention of food.

"About what?" Catherine asked. "He acted like I was the one who ran him off the road. And I didn't do it!"

"Now calm down, don't get excited," Robyn said. "I didn't want us to sit here and accuse one another. I just want to know what you think's going on. It has to be someone working on the film. Someone who gets a copy of the script scenes every day."

"I don't know what's going on, but I say we have to tell him." Marilyn lifted her head, ready to argue about it. "Are you sure it's following the script? You mean his house was torn up just like we filmed? And he was chased and run off a freeway, just like in the script?"

Robyn sighed and twirled her glass on the table. "That's exactly what is going on, Marilyn. Every time we film a scene, it happens to Karl. Or maybe sometimes it happens before we film it, but soon after the scene is handed out. And we can't tell him. I don't see how we can do that. I just don't think we can. We have to think of something else."

"Why can't we tell him?" Marilyn turned to Catherine, sitting next to her.

"Leave me out of it. He made me into the bad guy, remember?"

"Don't you think we have to tell him? He might even need a copy of the whole script so maybe he could stop this." She turned back to Robyn. "You have the whole script. You've seen it and we haven't. You could give it to him."

Olivia said, "Cam would kill us if we let the script out. We signed those nondisclosures. We'd be breaking contracts."

"That's why we can't tell him. You do see that, don't you, Marilyn? Cam would never forgive us. I've already talked to him about it and he said no way do we tell Karl," Robyn said.

Marilyn protested, "But what's wrong with you? Is Cam nuts? Karl might wind up murdered if we let this go. He has to be told. It's not like we're giving it to the gossip columnists. Karl's not going to tell anyone about the movie."

"Maybe not," Robyn said, having thought this out previously. "But he might have to tell the police. There was a report filed when his office was broken into . . ."

"All that blood," Olivia added.

Robyn continued, "Or he might tell Jimmy. Jimmy's his best friend. Or he might tell his girlfriend, what's her name . . ."

"Lisa," Catherine said.

She bit her lip and Robyn saw it. Marilyn and Olivia were both surprised, watching her.

"You know his girlfriend?" Robyn asked.

Catherine shrugged. "My husband bought our house from her. He told me she was dating my old . . . that she was dating Karl."

"Nevertheless," Marilyn said, "Karl wouldn't let the script out. He just wouldn't do that and you all know it. We have to tell him, no matter what Cam says. I mean, we're not going to sit around and let Karl go through this, are we?"

Robyn thought about her years with Karl, about how much she had adored him. She finally nodded. "I guess you're right. He can't be kept in the dark. This kind of secret could get him killed. One of us has to tell him what's going on so he can protect himself."

"I'll tell him then." Marilyn, satisfied now, drank down the rest of her beer and waved for the waiter for a refill.

"That doesn't solve the problem of who it is connected with the film doing this," Olivia said. "Once Karl knows what's going on, he'll be in a better position to save himself from whoever this asshole is, but that doesn't stop it, does it?"

Robyn ordered another Russian from the waiter and after he'd departed she said, "Who else but the four of us might be playing this dangerous game?"

"Well, it has to be somebody else. I know it's not me," Olivia said.

"Or me," Marilyn chimed in.

"It's definitely not me," Catherine said harshly. "I guarantee you. It's not me."

32

"Forsake not an old friend; for the new is not comparable to him."

Ecclesiastes 9:10.

Marilyn didn't have time to make a trip to Karl's house to talk to him about his troubles. She called from her house instead, the moment she returned home from the Phoenix.

She hadn't turned on many lights in the house, being in a rush. It scared her to be alone when too many rooms were in darkness. She turned her back on the doorway leading from her studio to the rest of the house, trying to ignore it. She stared at the painting she was in the process of finishing. As Karl's phone rang, she picked up a dry brush and went over some of the brush strokes in the paint, smoothing them out in her mind.

Karl's answering machine switched on and she frowned. She was saying, "Karl, it's Marilyn, I have to talk to you, it's impor—" when Karl picked up the phone.

"I'm here," he said. "Just monitoring the calls. What's up, Marilyn?"

"I wanted to come over and tell you this, but I don't have time tonight. We have to be on the set early tomorrow so I have to get some sleep. Why do you live so damn far out of the way?"

He laughed. "I might ask you the same thing."

"Anyway, I've just come from the Algonquin. Robyn, Olivia, Catherine, and I had drinks together."

"Yeah?" He sounded interested.

"They told me about your house and the wreck. I was really shocked. We all decided we had to tell you.”

“Tell me what?"

"Karl, everything that's been happening to you is from the script we're shooting. It's called Pure and Uncut, you know, Cam's special film processing that will make the movie sort of 3-D?"

"Wait, what do you mean, it's in the script?"

"Well, the script's about a man being stalked by a woman. Olivia's playing the part and Jackie Landry's the lead. The man in the movie works in the entertainment business and the stalker, Olivia, is a former actress."

"Okay."

"Everything we film seems to be happening to you. You know how your office was broken into and blood thrown all over the place? We filmed that already."

"Oh, that's just great . . ."

"Wait, there's more. You're getting notes, love notes, and the man in the movie's getting the same kind of notes. His house was broken into and all his furniture destroyed, just like your house. And Karl?"

"Yeah?" His voice was hardly audible.

"The last scene we shot was out on the freeway. Jackie's character was run off the road. Just like what happened to you.”

"Unbelievable. Who's doing this, Marilyn?"

"God, Karl, if I knew don't you think I'd tell you? I was the one who lobbied to tell you about the script. Cam made us sign nondisclosure contracts and he might even dump me from the project for telling you this. But I insisted we had to tell. You have to know."

"I want a copy of the script.”

“I don't have it."

"You don't have it? How can you not have it, you're acting in the picture, aren't you?"

"Sure, but Cam doesn't give us the whole script. We get our scenes that are supposed to be shot the next day. We don't even get much time to rehearse. It's really a hush-hush project. Everything about it is a secret. It gets out to the trades, it ruins it for Cam. You won't mention it, will you? Not even to Jimmy? Or your girlfriend? And you can't tell the police, oh god, don't go to the cops. Cam would be sure to fire me then."

"So you only get the next scene."

"Right."

"So what's the next one? You can tell me that much at least."

She told him the bare outline of the action sequence they would be working on the next day. He promised he wouldn't tell anyone. He further promised he wouldn't go to Cam unless he had to. He understood what kind of chance she was taking, he didn't want her to get hurt or to lose her job.

"Take care of yourself, Karl," she said.

"Don't worry, I will. You might have saved my life. I owe you, sweetheart."

"Don't be hurt no one has told you before now. You know what a tyrant Cam is. He doesn't take any of this seriously, what's been happening to you. All he thinks about is Pure and Uncut. Don't blame the others for not coming to you sooner."

"I'll try. It's going to be hard, but I'll try."

After she had hung up, feeling lighter than air because she had done a very good deed for a good man, she squeezed out a tube of yellow color onto her palette and swirled her brush in it. She would paint the sky in her painting with sunshine. The image of the bodies hanging from the windmills out on the desert was disturbing, but the sunny sky behind them would cause a startling effect. She might sell this one for several hundred at the gallery.

She'd title it Plan Gone Awry in Karl's honor. He'd like that.

When the phone rang, she jumped, having become immersed in artwork. She picked up the phone and heard a voice say, "Don't tell him. You tell him, you're dead." Then a click and a dial tone.

She stood holding the phone in one hand and the brush of yellow paint in the other. Her eyes unfocused as she stared into the depths of the canvas past the figures hanging dead, nailed to the windmills in killing sunlight so bright it seared the eyes.

She finally took a deep breath and returned the phone to the cradle of the receiver. "Too late," she said, trying on a grim smile.

33

"Murder in the murderer is no such ruinous thought as poets and romancers will have it; it does not unsettle him, or fright him from his ordinary notice of trifles; it is an act quite easy to be contemplated."

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Experience

The Body paced through the house, front to back, going in circles, busy grasping at the air as if there was something there to grab hold of and wring to death.

Marilyn couldn't tell Karl about the script. She couldn't do it, she couldn't.

This was a disaster in the making. It would ruin everything. Karl would be put on notice. The Body couldn't surprise him if he knew what was coming. Goddamn Marilyn.

Call her, tell her what will happen if she tells.

The Body snatched up the phone and dialed Marilyn's home number. After issuing the warning some peace of mind should have descended, but it was not to be. The frenzy only increased. Marilyn might not be someone who could be dissuaded by a phone call.

Cursing, The Body hurried into the silent room with the padding and locked the door. Couldn't sit down. Couldn't relax. It was all getting out of hand. How could that have happened? It was planned so meticulously. The Body hadn't believed any of the women involved on the set would tell Karl—at least not until it was too late to save him. They were all ambitious, selfish bitches and The Body had counted on that. They wanted their positions. Every one of them lusted for fame. They wanted this movie more than life itself. It would make them all stars, make them rich, make them immortal if what Cam expected at the box office panned out. This movie might be studied in film classes a hundred years from now because it would be the first commercial success in a new medium. Millions of dollars were invested in it.

How could they let Marilyn tell and chance getting the picture shut down, cops crawling all over the place? How were they going to insure Karl didn't call in someone and sabotage the entire film?

The Body prowled the dark room, the black room. The complete lack of light suited The Body's mood. Blackness, darkness, nothingness. Hate was black. The heart of the darkness lay in wait for hatred to bloom and so it did.

Forgetting that the chair stood in the room's center, The Body ran into it and nearly toppled over it to the floor.

"I'll kill her," The Body mumbled, kicking at the leather chair, then kicking it again.

The refrain rose and fell in the room's confines, the words absorbed into the thick walls. "I'll kill her. I’ll kill her for this. She needs killing for doing this. I have to kill her. I have to stop her."

The dark room wasn't having the calming effect it should have. The Body left it and moved through the empty house, footsteps echoing, to the nursery where the computer monitor sat on the white child's desk. The word processing software was open and a blank page for the diary glared pristine blue, a blue all-knowing eye, shining into the baby's room.

For what might have been hours, The Body sat before the monitor typing over and over again:

Hate, hate, hate, kill her kill her kill her hatehatehate . . .

34

"In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order."

Carl Jung, Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious

Karl could hardly contain himself, his mind on how to prepare for assault from his nameless stalker. He needed to handle a lot of stacked-up business on his desk in the office, but every time he tried, he'd catch himself sitting, daydreaming, staring at the wall.

Lois tried to make the bad news palatable. He had lost two more clients. Someone had sent them updates on his company claiming it was in financial trouble and not to be trusted to handle their affairs. One of the clients, a man who had come to him straight from a hit play, someone Karl had found a high-powered representative in the best talent agency in town, brought his letter to the office and threw it on Lois' desk before telling her he didn't need LaRosa's help from now on.

Karl scanned the letter and before he had finished reading the lies, crumpled it in his fist and threw it across the room. Lies. Innuendoes. Gossip.

But it was losing him clients. Karl wondered how many of his people had received the unsigned letter. He needed to call everyone, reassure them the letter was from an enemy and it was all scurrilous lies, please don't believe a word of it.

Yet all he could do half the day so far, rather than attend to his clients' affairs, was work out in his mind how to fend off the coming attack Marilyn had told him about from the script of Pure and Uncut.

The stalker would attach a bomb to the underside of his car.

He'd had Jimmy drive him into work. He would have to get the loaner, the Caprice, checked out before he drove it. He wasn't going to be blown to smithereens today. He was going to discover who was involved in this crazy thing and put a stop to it, permanently.

After lunch and a brisk walk in the air, he returned to the office and did some of the calling around he had put off. He couldn't find all his clients at home so he'd have to try later. The ones he did get to talk to assured him they would ignore the letter if it came.

At five PM he left the office and took a cab to Malibu. He had an appointment to meet with a mechanic at his house. This man always did the work on the Jag and was repairing it now. He'd know a bomb device when he saw one. He couldn't get away from work until after six, but he'd be there, he told Karl.

Karl was going to get him to explain what to look for and where to look. After this visit, Karl would be the one checking out whatever vehicle he meant to drive. Once he found a device attached to his car, he'd call the police in. This was a direct assault on his life. Now maybe they'd take his stalker case seriously. Sooner or later they had to.

35

"I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death."

Francis Bacon, An Essay on Death

It had been a very long day. Marilyn played Olivia's best friend in the film and the scene they had just shot entailed Marilyn listening in horror to a tirade Olivia went into about the man she loved and hated, the man she would destroy given half the chance.

It was an emotionally draining scene to shoot and Cam was hard on her. He was harder on Olivia, but the whole scene was a study in despair and lack of control. Olivia raved. Marilyn, as her friend, stood by, shocked at the vehemence displayed, and afraid that her friend really meant what her character was saying. Marilyn had to try to dissuade her, talk sense into her. Cam made her do the scene over and over, different angles, different lighting. It took forever.

They never even got to the bomb scene and what a relief that was. Although Marilyn wasn't featured in that scene, she didn't even want to be present when they shot it. Not after she knew how someone on the set was stalking Karl, using the script scenes. At least she had warned him. She wouldn't have his death on her conscience.

She went straight home from the studio lot and let herself in the front door. She didn't immediately know she was not alone. She flicked on the living room light, dropped her carrying bag she always took to the studio, and, stooping, untied and pulled off the size-too-small Nikes she never should have bought.

On the way to the bathroom to shower, she began to unbutton the blue painter's smock she had worn that day to work.

In the hall between the living room and bath she realized someone was in the house. She halted, breath catching in her throat. She had heard a door ease closed behind her. She twirled around, ready to scream. Saw nothing in the shadowy hallway.

"Who's there?"

A shadow slipped across the hall, a human silhouette falling from the light in the living room. Someone had been in there when she came in.

She was supposed to be safe here. It wasn't fair someone had come into her home and waited for her. She'd never believed that could happen. She should have taken a lover or a roommate to live with her. She should have had an alarm system installed, but who could afford it?

She was trembling all over and underneath the smock her skin had slicked down with a sheen of sweat that now chilled her. She might paint the most appalling visions of death and disorder, but the thought of it actually encroaching and invading her own life had always been the farthest thing from her mind. What she worked out in her studio was art, torturous artscapes from a timid, frightened mind. Real life horror, not the kind in movies or her paintings, was two steps beyond any of her real experience. Even in those days on the streets, she'd never been in mortal danger.

She began to call out again, but her voice was a croak and she didn't recognize it. She swallowed hard and tried once more.

"What do you want? If you're here to rob me . . ."

She hadn't seen the shadows flicker again, nor had she heard any sounds. It might all be her vivid imagination. It's true she was easily spooked. Sometimes at night she'd be sound asleep and wake up startled at some sound from the house settling. She'd creep from bed and search out the house before she could sleep again.

She might not have seen the human shadow at all, really, or heard a door closing at her back . . .

The horror that she drew, the horror that she imagined so well on canvas, but did not believe might ever come close to her, leapt from behind, strangling her and lifting her off her feet. She kicked wildly, gasping for air, beating at the arm around her neck which shut off her wind so that she could not scream, could not even speak.

She was flipped around to face the bathroom door that stood slightly ajar. Her kicking, stockinged feet knocked it open and she was bodily carried into the bath. She thought she caught a glimpse of her attacker in the counter-length mirrors above the sink, but the image was a blur of black cloth, black ski mask, and then she was turned to the right, toward the shower and tub stall. Her head was forced forward with a jerk and her forehead banged into the frosted glass of the shower door, cracking it.

Marilyn saw stars and prayed not to pass out. She squirmed and gouged and kicked for her life, but she hadn't a chance to divert or stop the unseen big blade of a knife that drove between her third and fourth ribs on the left side, angling up toward her heart and lung.

Her screams, loud and echoing with abandon off the tiled walls, went higher and higher as her head hit the glass again and the knife plunged again and the blood ran down her side to her waist, her hips, her thighs, and down her jeans soaking them black, pooling on the floor where her white socks were quickly soaked red. She slipped and slid until finally her legs gave out from under her and she collapsed down, down in a heap, dying with her eyes open, staring at how incredibly red was her blood, more red than any paint she had ever seen, redder than a fiery sky shining down over a field of the crucified windmill dead.

~ * ~

The Body stood panting over the corpse for what seemed an eternity. Finally when breathing was regulated to an even flow of air in and out of the lungs, and the flooded fury of combat eased to a trickle, The Body leaned over and carefully removed the clothes from Marilyn Lori-Street. Blood was everywhere, but there was time, all night in fact, to take care of that.

Once the corpse was nude, The Body lifted it onto the lip of the tub and tipped it over into the purity of the white porcelain. Her neck was crooked, perhaps broken now. The legs lay cocked up against the tiled wall. Something about the vulnerability of the naked feet gave The Body pause. They were small, blood-smeared and high arched; beautiful in the way only perfect appendages could be. Marilyn's hands were not nearly so nice as her feet.

The Body looked at the large knife lying in the pooled violet-red blood on the floor. It was sharp, having just been sharpened for this specific job of murder. How hard could it be to dismember the body in the tub?

The Body had all night.

36

"Every murder turns on a bright hot light, and a lot of people . . . have to walk out of the shadows."

Mark Hellinger, The Naked City

Officers Dorian Lepski and Shane Miller patrolled the street past the famous Garden Palm Restaurant and Bar during the eleven-to-seven shift. Dorian drove, idly glancing along the sidewalk to his left as Shane monitored the buildings to the right of the car. He was tired and his back ached. He should get one of those wooden car seat covers purported to massage the driver's back during long hours at the wheel. He'd seen them for sale at the drug store for less than ten bucks. Cheap investment.

It was a quarter to six when he came up on the Garden Palm and noticed something not right.

"You see that?" he asked his partner. "What the hell is that?"

It looked like something hanging on the door. It wasn't a package. It looked like . . .

"Looks like a leg, for cripes' sake," Shane said. "Pull over there."

Dorian did a U-turn in the empty street and pulled the cruiser up at the curb in front of the Garden Palm. From his vantage point nearest the curb, Shane said, "I'll be goddamned. It's somebody's fuckin' leg."

Dorian climbed from his seat, his back creaking. Shane was at the door before him. They stood back two feet and stared incredulously at the body part dangling from the door handle of the restaurant. A wire—looked like an unwound clothes hanger—was wound around the ankle and the other end was wrapped round the door handle. Blood had dripped from the jagged thigh to the concrete step.

"I ain't ever seen anything like it," Dorian said.

"And in this area," Shane agreed.

"Wonder where the rest of it is?"

"Guess we better call the lieutenant to handle this. I sure as hell am not going to touch that thing." Shane returned to the patrol car to call for help.

Dorian Lepski rubbed at the small of his back and stood gazing at the hanging leg. He'd bet it was from a woman. Small delicate foot. Smooth skin, hairless leg. Had to be a woman. Damned nasty way to go.

He shivered and rolled his shoulders. Sometimes being a cop made him want to run off to an Amazon forest and build a hut out of leaves and never see another human being again. Especially dead ones.

~ * ~

Pan didn't think of himself as a homeless person. He was just a guy down on his luck and in need of funds. He'd be on top again when he could get a handle on this terrible floating anxiety that came out of the blue to make it impossible to function some days.

He didn't know how he had gotten himself from his usual haunts onto Rodeo Drive, Los Angeles' high-priced shopping district. He'd been walking all night, not feeling sleepy. He could sleep in the day, in the park, when it was warmer. And safer. Never knew what might sneak up on you in the dark. So he kept moving and noticed around dawn that he was way out of his neighborhood. If he didn't get off Rodeo before the shops opened, they'd call the cops on him and get him thrown in the hoosegow for vagrancy.

He hurried down the block meaning to take the next street corner that would lead him away from the area. He almost missed it. Not the corner. The arm.

He was past it before the sight registered on his brain. He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and looked around, all around, up and down the street, behind him, up at the blank-faced windows on the expensive buildings.

There was no one around. A car drove past, but the driver didn't even look at him.

Down at the corner the stoplight blinked red.

Slowly, Pan turned around and walked back to the Rodeo Drive boutique where he had seen the arm.

It hung from a wire attached to the shop's polished brass doorknob. It was really an arm. It wasn't his imagination. He reached out tentatively and touched the wrinkled flesh of the elbow, then jerked back his finger. Cold. Around the wrist there was bruising and discoloration where the wire was wrapped. The fingers stood straight up as if thrown out in alarm. A woman. It was a woman's arm. Nice manicured nails, young tight skin, no rings.

The arm had been cut off at the shoulder socket. A too-white knob of bone stuck out from the end of the raggedly cut flesh.

Pan looked around wildly again, hoping no one had seen him near the arm. He looked at the picture window of the shop. Marvin's Fine Leather. Handbags and suitcases and portfolios crowded the window arrangement.

Marvin sure would be surprised when he came to open up.
Pan stumbled backward, away from the atrocity, ashamed that he had touched it. He turned and ran for the corner, took it going so fast he almost fell down. Four blocks distant he found a phone booth and called 911 to report anonymously, "There's a cut-off arm hanging on the door of Marvin's Fine Leather on Rodeo Drive," he said, then hung up abruptly before they could ask him his name.

He felt the black cloud of fear descend over him again and he began to make gibbering sounds as he hurried toward his neighborhood. He just couldn't stop being scared. Scared of cars on the street, scared of houses full of quarreling families, scared of shelters and strangers and cats and dogs. Scared of thunderstorms and Santa Ana winds.

Now he would be scared of losing his arms and having them hang from the doors of exclusive shops. He wrapped his hands around himself and hugged tightly, hurrying, hurrying away from the horror that would stay with him the rest of his days.

~ * ~

Cam came out to his Cadillac sedan, his arms laden with papers and the notebooks he took with him to the set every day. He got the back door open and dropped the burden on the back seat.

He opened the front driver's door and was fumbling with his car keys to get the ignition key in his grip so he almost bent down and slipped into the seat before he noticed it was occupied.

He drew back in terror when he saw the head sitting on the white leather.

He let out a yelp and backpedaled from the open car door.

He was hyperventilating. He couldn't get enough air. Maybe he was going to have a heart attack. He clutched his chest and stared at the head. He knew who it was. He knew who that head belonged to.

He turned in the driveway and vomited, bent over, eyes squeezed closed. After heaving up his breakfast of coffee and cinnamon buns, he wiped the back of his mouth with his hand.

It was Marilyn. Someone had decapitated her and left the head in Cam's car. He forced himself to look at her again. Her blond hair was streaked rusty with blood. Her eyes were open and covered with a glassy film. Her neck looked as if it had been sawed and hacked. There were slice wounds above the fatal cut that severed her head from her body.

Cam turned away again, feeling his stomach lurch. Nothing else to come up. He heaved dryly.

"Fuck," he murmured. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." Two emotions warred for his attention. His sadness that Marilyn was dead. And his worry about how this would affect Pure and Uncut.

Already his mind was working on the problem. He could have her written out, edit out her scenes. Or he could have Olivia's character turn on her best friend and kill her. The scene could be shot really dark so anyone in a blond wig could be Marilyn filmed from the rear. He'd have to do that, then. Kill her off. Her murder might even bring some tabloid publicity to the movie when it was shown. The morbid curiosity roused by her death during filming could only help the film. Besides, it was too hard to rewrite some of the already filmed scenes and then reshoot.

When he called the police . . .

He drew himself up straight and ran a hand down over his belly, hoping it would settle down now.

Hell, if he called the police, they'd be all over the set. Add in Karl LaRosa's problems and now this death of one of his actresses and he might as well shut down the project. Cops would interfere. They'd investigate everybody connected to the film, most particularly the man who found Marilyn's head on the seat of his car.

"Fuck," he said again. What was he supposed to do? Just throw away millions of dollars invested and forget making his film when it was going to be the one that superseded anything he had ever directed? The one movie that would catapult filmgoers from the dark ages into the future of film technology? He could be the first. The leader, the innovator.

The revered.

Or he could call the cops to come get poor Marilyn's head off the Cadillac's seat and seal his own failure. No investor would ever trust him again to try the new techniques. Why, they already had the equipment ordered for the theaters across the country, they had already backed more than a hundred theater owners to expand their screens for overhead and wraparound projection!

Too many people would go down the drain. Hollywood would never forgive him. If Pure and Uncut failed, it would make the Heaven's Gate debacle look like a minor setback.

He knew what he had to do. He wasn't proud of it, but he had to do it. There wasn't anything he could do for Marilyn now. She was dead; she couldn't accuse him.

He ran back into the house and found a pair of leather driving gloves someone had given him as a gift last Christmas. He lifted them from the box they had come in and slipped them on. Nice fit.

Then he found a black Hefty garbage bag in the kitchen pantry. He brought it out to the car and flapped open the bag. He reached into the driver's seat and put his fingers into Marilyn's matted hair. He cringed and his stomach flopped around like a fish in his midsection, but he managed to lift the head and drop it into the garbage bag without going into the dry heaves again.

He opened the rear door and deposited the bag on the floorboard. Oh God, if she rolled around back here while he was driving . . .

He slammed the door shut and returned to the house for a soapy wet washcloth to clean down the white leather seat. While washing the blood off, he turned his head to his left and stared at the dash. He held his breath. This was awful, this was worse than anything he'd had happen to him since Nam. If he ever found out the motherfucker who did this, he'd break the son of a bitch's fingers one by one, then he'd break his fucking neck. He'd do that before he ever called the cops.

He checked to see if the leather was clean and when he was satisfied, he took the cloth indoors, rinsed it out in the kitchen sink, and draped it over the counter edge to dry. The scent of blood was in his nostrils and he didn't know if it would ever leave. He should find something to deodorize his car, but. .

He had to hurry. He was holding up the production already. He was late. Catherine or Robyn would be calling any minute to see what was wrong. When he got to the studio, he'd tell them he'd overslept. He would act as if he had a hangover. They'd believe that. He often had hangovers.

He drove away from his house and out of Beverly Hills. He passed a stretch of undeveloped woods and slowed. He parked, leaving the car running, waited for cars to thin out until no car was visible on the road, then he opened the back door and withdrew the garbage bag. He walked quickly to the edge of the road and looked down at the overgrown ravine. He hauled back and swung the bag the way he would a baseball, giving it his all, and saw the round object lift, bump a limb, fall and tumble down the ravine out of sight.

In the car again he put it into gear and drove away carefully, not wishing to leave his tire tracks behind in the gravel lining the road.

Done, he thought. I'm sorry, Marilyn, but the picture means more to me than you do. The cops will find the bastard who did this later. Right now you just have to understand what I'm working against.

He came onto the set flushed and angry. Everyone stayed out of his way, which worked to his advantage. He had a feeling his day was all uphill from here if he didn't think too much about what he had done. But he didn't want to fuck with anybody and he didn't want to look anyone in the eyes. One of them probably cut off Marilyn's head. Filming a movie about a killer and dealing with a real one weren't the same thing at all.

A few people asked about Marilyn, wondering why she wasn't in her dressing room. Catherine called her house and reported no answer.

Luckily she wasn't due to be in the scene today. They'd discover soon enough she was missing and would begin to shoot around her until Cam could finally write her out of the rest of the picture without drawing any protest. If she didn't show up, how could they use her?

He didn't give himself time to worry why the killer had put Marilyn's head in his car. Not until much later, after he had gone home for the day and he had stopped by one of his hangouts to drink beer with construction workers, did it occur to him to wonder why that had been done.

Maybe the killer knew him so well he or she knew he would dispose of the head and not call in the police? Had he been used? Manipulated?

"Fuck," he said to his bar companion, a man with a fifth-grade education and biceps the size of a wrestler's. "I'm having a lot of problems doing this film. A lot of really serious problems."

"Tell me about it," the other man said, hefting a can of Bud to his mouth. "I like movies."

But Cam couldn't. Not this, he couldn't tell. He would never tell this to anyone, ever. His shameful act would be buried in his psyche until he died.

37

"Cinema, radio, television, magazines are a school of inattention: people look without seeing, listen in without hearing."

Robert Bresson, 1950-1958: Exercises

The whole office was buzzing with speculation about the latest grisly Hollywood crime. Not since the murders of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman had any Hollywood death caused such a sensation.

In some ways, Karl thought, reading the account in the front pages of the newspaper, this crime was more frightening than the ones involving Simpson's ex-wife. The body parts of the unidentified female victim had been strewn all over the city. The Garden Palm restaurant had to close when the press swamped it, shooting film for the television news stations and taking pictures for the newspapers.

On the other hand, the owner of the shop on Rodeo Drive kept his doors open and became a minor media celebrity by giving lurid accounts of how the dismembered arm looked hanging by wire from his door.

A teenage boy, interviewed on A Current Affair about reporting the leg he found lying on the star-studded sidewalk in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater, was offered a part as a Power Ranger on the TV Saturday Series because he looked so fresh and handsome on the tube.

The second arm was discovered sticking out from a dumpster at an all-night restaurant on Sunset and the torso, armless, headless, legless, was reportedly sitting propped upright on a bus stop bench not more than four blocks away. An old woman called in to report it, complaining the elderly couldn't even depend on mass transportation in this city because of the crime problems and what they might find waiting for them at bus stops.

The authorities, without having possession of the head, had no way of determining the identity of the corpse, but the county coroner, a man who had handled both the Marilyn Monroe case and the notorious Brown-Goldman case, told reporters all the parts belonged to one woman.

Karl shook his head at the cruelty involved in such a crime. It didn't do much good for his business. It didn't do much for Hollywood. The finding of body parts all over the place had effectively rid the streets of hookers, afraid the casualty came from their ranks, but it had also dampened the enthusiasm of shoppers along Rodeo Drive and Sunset Boulevard. You couldn't turn on a radio or television without being bombarded with the harrowing facts from the media.

Lois knocked on his private office door and then slipped inside, shutting the door behind her. She held a secretarial notebook and pen to her chest.

"Can I talk to you?" she asked.

Lois, even more than his assistant, was his right hand. Most of the work carried on at LaRosa Enterprise was conducted by her.

"Sure," he said, nodding and pointing to the chair before his desk. "What's up?"

"Well, I got a call from your accountant the other day when you weren't in the office."

Karl felt bad news coming. He sat up in his chair and leaned on his elbows on the desk. "Go on."

"He said the IRS had been in touch with him concerning your last quarterly. I'm afraid it's not good news, Karl."

"I owe money," he said, wondering why he was not surprised. If someone had been able to put the screws to the credit reporting agencies, why not the IRS?

Lois looked down at the pad in her lap. "A lot," she said.

"A lot? How much?"

"The accountant said they're doing an audit. They're claiming you owe a hundred and twenty thousand in back taxes to the government. Employee taxes that were miscalculated or unpaid or something. Or maybe he said it was taxes on unreported earnings. I can't remember now, it upset me so much."

"Jesus." Karl swiveled away from the desk, turning his chair so he could look out the window at the street.

"The accountant says they're wrong, but he sounded worried. He wants all our files. All the way back for six years."

Karl didn't say anything. He entertained no doubt this latest round of bad luck was generated by his stalker. Before this his dealings with the federal government had been pristine. It was a nuisance case, plain and simple. Numbers were scrambled in his file some way. How in the hell did someone do that?

"Don't worry, Lois." He turned back to her. "You're worrying. You look like you just came from your best friend's funeral. This stuff is just temporary glitches, all right? It'll get worked out. I know it's more work for you, getting the files out of storage, but I don't want you to worry about me."

"It seems . . ." She had tears in her eyes and looked down at her pad again.

"What is it?" he prodded gently.

"It seems too much that's bad is happening to you. I don't understand it. The office broken into, your house ransacked, the . . . wreck."

She didn't know the half of it. His people in the office didn't know all about the notes he got or the way someone had manipulated his credit reports. They didn't know someone in the business who was involved with the shooting of a new film was using the script as a roadmap. Still, if he could, he needed to reassure his secretary. The rest of the office took cues from her. If they saw her upset and worried about him, it put everyone in the doldrums.

He stood up and circled the desk between them. When Lois rose he put his arm around her shoulder and turned her toward the door. He spoke softly. "It's going to be okay. Everything's under control. This IRS thing is just an aggravation. I don't owe that kind of money for back taxes. They made a mistake, that's all. Why don't you order a few pizzas for lunch to be delivered? Let's cheer the office up. You want to do that?"

She smiled up at him. "With anchovies?"

"Oh, god, no."

She grinned prettily. "I was just kidding. I know anchovies make you sick."

She was a good person, efficient, understanding, and, when she wasn't worried about his affairs, she could be a great little tease.

"Get outta here," he said, aiming her out the door. "I have to call some people."

He shut the door and stood with his back to it for a few moments. A hundred and twenty thousand. Someone was very good with computers. Someone was extremely intelligent and competent in finding ways to ruin him. At least with Marilyn telling him each day's shooting script, he wouldn't have to be so afraid of being caught unawares. He now had his own inside information. He wasn't blundering around blindly now, waiting like a clay pigeon to be shot out of the air.

Things could be worse.

38

"How does one kill fear, I wonder? How do you shoot a spectre through the heart, slash off its spectral head, take it by its spectral throat?"

Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim

The Body did a remarkable job at that day's shooting despite the air of distress that hung over the crew about the woman's dismembered parts found all over Hollywood.

They'd never identify her without the head. And Cam must have taken care of that since he came to the set and never said a word about it when the reports started coming in. Just what The Body had counted on. If there was one person who wouldn't want to get involved in a murder investigation, it was Cambridge Hill. Not when his movie was at stake.

The Body wondered all day how Cam had reacted when he found Marilyn's head on the seat of his fancy Cadillac. And what he did with it before he came to the studio lot. He couldn't have just put it in the trunk to dispose of later, could he? No, he would have already done that. The Body just hoped he hadn't stuffed it into his curbside garbage pail. It might be found too soon if he had.

Too bad about Marilyn. She had a scene coming up with Olivia tomorrow and that's when everyone would begin to worry when she didn't show up. Eventually they'd all begin to theorize about how she came up missing at the same time as the news was full of reports of a woman's body parts being found all over the city, but by then it would be too late to worry about it interfering with The Body's plans.

If only she hadn't been so insistent in the Phoenix that night that they must tell Karl about the script. Looking at her from behind a potted palm, The Body's vantage point at the bar, it had been almost more than The Body could do to keep from strangling her in front of everyone.

At day's end, The Body drove past Karl's house just in time to see him exiting a yellow taxicab and paying the driver. He wasn't driving the loaner car!

The Body rolled on past, eyes straight ahead. It was twilight and the car's headlights beamed white, unforgiving light on the tall, skinny palms and fragile crepe myrtles. They looked washed out, not green enough to be real. Nearby the sea hissed along the private stretches of beach adjoining the Malibu enclaves.

The Body turned around and drove past Karl's house again, noticing the lights on inside. Parking at a distance, The Body jogged back to the driveway and crept to the far side of the Chevrolet Caprice. Hunkered down. Looked beneath the car to the exhaust system, hunting for the simple bomb device put there the day before.

As suspected, it was gone.

Marilyn had called him. She'd told him. Before The Body had gotten to her and despite the warning phone call, she had told him about the script and the very next scene.

Scrabbling back away from the car and moving stealthily down the drive, The Body fumed. If Marilyn weren't already dead, she'd die in a different fashion. Not from a knife through the heart this time. She'd be alive while having her limbs taken off, one by one. She'd know what was being done to her beautiful young body before she expired. She'd witness her own desecration.

On the way home, The Body stopped at a phone booth set away from a gas station and dialed Karl's number.

~ * ~

Karl jerked up the phone on the second ring before the answering machine could engage. "Yeah?" He was dripping water, just out of the shower and not yet dried off. The towel hung from his free hand and he saw that his wet footprints looked dark gray against the carpet leading from the bath.

"I'm going to kill you," a voice said.

Karl pressed the receiver hard against his ear. "Who is this? You're not going to kill anybody. You're a coward, a slithering, snake-bellied coward and I'm not afraid of you."

"The pieces of that body they found?"

The voice was muffled and of indeterminable gender. Karl wouldn't have made out the words had he not been concentrating and listening carefully. Now he bit down on his lip at the mention of the crime that was all over the news. He knew, knew suddenly, what the caller was going to say and it made his legs rubbery so that he had to collapse onto the side of the bed. He pressed the receiver so hard to his head that it hurt.

"What are you talking about?" he whispered.

"You know what I'm talking about. The arms and legs, the torso. They don't know who it is. But we know, don't we? It was that lying, bigmouth bitch Marilyn. She told you about the bomb. You had it removed."

There was a pause and Karl could hear the caller breathing.

"You can't stop me now. You're a dead man."

Before Karl could say anything, the call was disconnected. He sat naked, bewildered and grieving, droplets of water from his hair sliding down his forehead and the back of his neck, chilling him.

Marilyn had been killed because of him, because she'd tried to save him. Oh God in heaven. Oh dear God. Because of him. The foul evil that had been aimed at him had found another target for just a little while and Marilyn had been sacrificed in the furnace of that hatred.

He had to call the police. He had to tell them he knew who those scattered limbs belonged to. He had to let them know there was a killer on the loose. An insane murderer.

'The phone rang again and Karl jerked up the receiver.

"I forgot to tell you something."

“You . . . !”

"You call the cops? That's what you were just thinking, isn't it? You call the cops, though, and I make you a promise. Another old girlfriend loses her head over you."

'The cackling laughter rung in Karl's ears long after the caller had hung up and the dial tone buzzed monotonously. Karl sat with the receiver lying in his lap and he could still hear the sexless, maniacal laughter. It was so macabre it could have been coming from an open, windswept grave on a black November night.

39

"O, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven! Keep me in temper. I would not be mad."

William Shakespeare, King Lear

Cambridge Hill was a slob. Lived in his own shit. Disgusting. With his money he could have hired two-dozen domestics, but it looked like he only had someone come in occasionally. That occasion had not been recent.

The Body winced with distaste while maneuvering the piled and scabbed dishes in the kitchen, noted the overflowing ashtrays and scattered newspapers in the living room that was the size of a ballpark, swore at the stacks of unopened bills and invitations and junk mail piled all over the small eighteenth-century teakwood desk in what appeared to be Cam's ruined bedroom. Covers hung from the mattress to the floor. Discarded clothes were everywhere, covering every surface of furniture, dirty damp towels stood wadded and mountainous just outside the bathroom door.

Where would the script be? Under this stack of mail? No green cover in sight. Where—hell—where would he have put any extra copies?

He might have them in his office at the studio.

Getting in there would take so much effort. Might not be able to do it. Guarded too well, too much security.

Goddamn it, the script had to be here somewhere.

The Body toppled the stacks of mail. Envelopes fluttered to the floor and behind the desk. In the four drawers there was more mail, some of it opened, some not. Pencils, pens, paper clips, rubber bands, stamps.

No script.

The Body moved from the bedroom after peeking into the bathroom. The terrible mess in there made The Body's nose wrinkle. It smelled like mildew overlaid with men's cologne. Stunk worse than an old whorehouse. He must never wash his socks. There was a mountain of them all black, as tall as the damp towels. He probably bought new socks every week. Perhaps every couple of months he threw out the old stinking ones.

What a fucking pig.

It was in the library-study that the script was unearthed. This was no gentleman's library, no alphabetically arranged system of books in beautifully wrought wood shelves. Much handled and tattered paperbacks were squashed between hardbacks, magazines sprawled from shelf edges and over the floor, textbooks with broken spines were tilted precariously against vases full of dead flower arrangements and there were scripts literally everywhere. Stacked on the seats of chairs, spread three deep over a reading table in the center of the room, lying on the shelves, fallen open on top of magazines.

How did Cam ever find any damn thing in this chaos? He lived like a mad mystic. The Body imagined him going from one interest to another in the room, moving swiftly between an open encyclopedia to a magazine on a shelf to some scene in one of the myriad bent and littered scripts that sparkled with Post-it notes in three violently fluorescent colors.

Pure and Uncut had been bound in metallic green covers. The Body searched for twenty minutes amid the paper rubble before finding a copy beneath a weighty tome on criminal behavior.

Snatching it up, The Body grinned and thought if anyone were watching, he would think that grin malign. Got it. Got the plan and no one could take it away. No one would even know. Cam obviously hadn't looked at this particular copy of the script for ages. He had his own personal copies at the office, no doubt. This might have been an early working copy.

Now to get out of this place before Cam showed up. Get out where there was fresh air to clean away the stink of a life that obviously thrived in this massive disorder.

With the bound script, The Body finally possessed an outline of every step that needed taking to rob Karl of his precious life. No longer would The Body have to wait for the scene handed out daily. Now all the details for destruction were collected in one spot, in one metallic green folder. The Body could choose to skip scenes. Could choose to hurry Karl LaRosa to his demise, if that was called for.

The prospect was thrilling enough to make the exit from Cam's house as happy as a lighthearted dance through the air.

It was beautiful when a plan came together like a dream.

40

"A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it."

Bertrand Russell, Logic and Knowledge

Now tired and drained after the excitement of finding the script, The Body's mood spiraled into depression. While looking through the script in the nursery, bad memories crept into the forefront of the mind and demanded attention. The Body tried not to give in, but could think of nothing to replace or dispel the gloom. Gloom was not a state of mind, but a presence with shape and form. It seemed to come from the corners of the room, sliding from the shadows, insinuating itself through the very pores of the human body slumped in the chair at the child's desk.

Too hard to fight a phantom. Then let it come. Let the past swamp the present and take it away. When you couldn't fight, there was no alternative but to give in.

The Body glanced around the room from lowered lids, sneaking quick looks. Staring straight on might call attention to the self. Hallucinations always lay in wait, waking dreams that were more real than life. Most often they came when cocooned in the leather chair in the deprivation room, but sometimes the hallucinations pounced during normal time, time that The Body used to live life the way other people lived it.

From the wall at the head of the crib, the ghost of a child formed, rising from within the flat, white plaster. It was Michelle.

The Body whispered her name.

"Michelle. My belle."

The words from the old Beatles' song.

She floated from above the crib, settling down just on the floor in front of it. "This room is pretty," she said in her little girl's piping voice. "Can I stay here?"

She could not stay. If she stayed, at least for very long, The Body would die.

"You don't belong here. This isn't our old home. Go away, Michelle. Go away."

"But it's pretty here," she repeated. "I don't like it where I am. It's cold."

She was wet, her hair dark strings hanging about her face. She was bloated. She carried the sharp scent of chlorine and underneath that odor a sweetish, cloying smell of decay. She was dead. For many years she had been dead. Poor little sister.

Of course she was cold. Dead and alone, drowned on that sunny Hollywood day.

"I can't help you. Please go away."

Tears fell down The Body's face onto the open script. This is why there was no name. When alone and in the mind, the identity was The Body. Not twin or sibling, simply nameless. Just one aching shell of a body that had lost its soul the day Michelle died. Heartbreak all over again. It did not matter thirty-two years had passed. The pain was as great today as it was when it happened. A three-year-old never forgot, never let go. The wound remained raw and open, no way to heal.

"I'll just sit here," Michelle said, squatting and then sitting down on the floor. "I won't bother you." She rested her head on her little fists, staring at The Body.

On the day of her death thirty-two years ago, she had been arguing with her twin over possession of a big red plastic ball. She wanted to throw it in the pool. Both of them had been strongly admonished never to go near the pool without adult supervision. They did not know how to swim. They hardly ever had mommy or daddy around to teach them how. Mommy and daddy were movie stars. The parents were famous and busy, meaning the twins' care fell on the shoulders of live-in help. Nannies and housekeepers. No one wanted to play in the pool with the children, no one had time, "Too much to do, children, too much to do."

Time, it seemed, was too precious and too scarce for any of it to be shared with toddlers.

"I told you to put the ball back," The Body said now, weeping openly at the memory of that terrible day. "If you'd only let me have it."

"I just wanted to see it float in the pool," Michelle said. "Pretty ball. Pretty ball on top of the blue water."

She had the big ball in her chubby baby arms. She couldn't see where she was going or what was before her, how close she might be to the pool edge. Her twin came from the side and tugged to free the ball. "You can't go near the swimming pool. We'll get in trouble. Gimme it."

Michelle squealed and jerked away, refusing. She had always been the stubborn one. She stumbled, turned around trying to get her balance and still keep possession of the red ball. Her twin saw her falling. Reached out one hand to grab her, but it was too late. Her arms flew out to each side and the ball lifted into the air like a balloon.

Michelle hit the water first, falling backward, going under and sinking to the bottom. The ball bounced almost exactly on the spot where she hit. Her twin went to the pool's edge.

There was a screaming that went on and on. MOM . . . MOM . . . MOMMOMMOM!

Michelle was in the deep end, down under, her long hair swirling in the blue water like seaweed. She stared up through the water, eyes bulbous in shock, her mouth open in her own terrified scream. Her little arms made slow motion circles in the water as she kicked to reach the surface and air.

Her twin raised eyes to heaven, screaming, screaming, screaming for help.

Help came. But only after Michelle had swallowed water and lost air in her lungs. She bobbed face down in the still waters of the blue pool by the time anyone showed at its side. Not far away the big red ball rolled lazily over the wind-ruffled wavelets.

And still her twin screamed, unable to stop.

A gardener tried to revive her. Then the paramedics arrived and they tried, laboring in the heat, bent over her and sweating. Her twin stood by, going unnoticed, crying and whispering, "Save her, save her, save her." It was useless. Little Michelle was gone.

"Please go away," The Body cried. "Go away, go away, go away. I can't save you." It seemed no one could.

Michelle took pity after watching her twin cry and beg. She stood and floated toward the ceiling. She touched the top bar of the empty crib on her way. She moved toward the blank white wall, turned and waved, and disappeared through it into the beyond.

The Body had let the script fall to the floor. Had slipped from the chair to kneel and to keen in misery. Gloom had won. It had found its victim.

Michelle's twin called for help, screaming.

In the midst of the wail of despair, The Body shouted a name, cursing it.

Catherine shouldn't have killed the babies. Unlike the accident that took Michelle, the little twins in Catherine's body made no mistakes, presented no stubbornness that shoved them toward the brink of death. They were blameless. Murdered. For no reason. If Karl died because of those deaths so that Catherine would be convicted, then that is what it would take to clear the slate. She must pay for her terrible sin. It was not true the pregnancy was her concern only. It was not true that a fetus was a blob of cell structures and blood. Even in the first weeks a fetus already had a head, arms, legs, a body. A fetus was a human being dependent on its host for protection, for life.

How could she have had them aborted, those tiny twins? How could she have killed them in such a wanton, thoughtless way?

41

"Best friend, my well-spring in the wilderness!"

George Eliot, The Spanish Gypsy

Karl LaRosa was left alone for a week. He received no phone calls or notes from his tormentor, suffered no attempts on his life. There were no more bomb devices attached to the underside of the rental car.

It took that much time for The Body to search through the script and decide what scene to implement. During those days' filming on the set and location there was quite a hullabaloo about the missing actress, Marilyn Lori-Street. A police detective from missing persons was contacted by her friends. A few people from the film, including Cambridge Hill, were questioned about the last time she was seen. The detective seemed to be a tired, bored man going through the motions. He took a few notes, asked some desultory questions, and left.

Cam rewrote the scenes that included her, effectively writing her out of the movie by having Olivia's stalker character turn on her best friend and murder her. They used a stand-in actress wearing a wig. They never showed her face.

People on the film still discussed Marilyn and worried over her, but, as a topic of conversation, speculation on her whereabouts was beginning to lag. They were all too busy to give it the attention perhaps it deserved. Films couldn't just halt because one of the actors disappeared. It wasn't as if it hadn't happened before. The schedule went ahead at an inflexible pace.

After the week of planning, which gave Karl time enough to get back his Jaguar from the body shop, everything was set into motion again. After a lull in the eye of the hurricane the storm is greatest, The Body recalled. Karl might die from this attempt on his life. Once he was dead, the authorities would come looking for his killer.

And they would find Catherine Rivers. All the clues, for any halfway decent investigator, pointed to her involvement. She'd be arrested. She would pay for all her crimes. They might even suspect her of Marilyn's murder.

At this point in the script the fictional stalker had lost all patience. There was no longer any pretense that the man would find a way to love the rejected woman again. She meant to kill him, to even things.

Just as The Body meant to do.

If it didn't work, there were one or two more scenes upcoming that could be tried. Soon now, Karl LaRosa would be on the way to the cemetery. He might not know it, but he already had one foot in the grave and the other planted on flimsy ground.

~ * ~

Karl was thrilled to have his Jag back from the shop. It looked beautiful again. The detailed workmanship of the repair made the car look new once more. They had had to replace parts and repaint the car. The paint shone like liquid silver.

"Great work," Jimmy Watz said, sliding into the passenger seat. He had had a little time off and accompanied Karl to pick up the car. "These guys are worth the money."

"It's true, they are. I'm beginning to have some money problems lately, though, so this bill hurt more than it should have."

Jimmy listened while Karl explained the latest mishaps in his financial affairs.

"Okay," Jimmy said, "who do you know can use a computer and a modem like that? Got any old girlfriends who are techies?"

Karl shook his head. "That's what gets me. I mean, almost everyone I know owns a computer, but not many of us in the business spend our free time at home hacking around on them. I don't remember any woman I ever dated mentioning a real interest in computers or programming."

"Well, someone knows how to go about it, that's for sure. Isn't there anything you can do about it? Can't you turn your suspicions to someone?"

"I could if I could prove it. I don't know how to find that proof."

"You need some help, Karl. If someone can ruin your credit, get into the IRS database and show you owing back taxes, then you need some kind of electronic snooper who can follow the trail and find out who's doing it."

"Great. You know anyone like that?"

Karl drove them toward Malibu, handling the Jag casually, more at home behind the wheel than he had been in ages.

"Let me check around with some of my friends," Jimmy said. "I'll find you someone. This shit's got to stop.”

“Ain't that the truth."

The conversation continued during the trip home and into Karl's house where he put some steaks under the oven's broiler and tore some lettuce in a big bowl for salad. Jimmy hung over the counter, drinking beer and just watching the meal preparations. He liked those times he and Karl batched it with no women around.

After dinner, with twilight settled all around the house, and the lights twinkling from beyond the repaired sliding glass doors to the patio area, Jimmy went to the refrigerator and found they were out of beer.

"I'll go to the store and get us one more six-pack. Hell, it's Saturday night Karl. I ought to be out laying some chick, the least I can do is hoist a few beers in consolation that I'm stuck with you tonight." He grinned and Karl laughed.

"Here." Karl threw Jimmy the keys to the Jag. "Take silver babe out there. Maybe one day when you're a big movie star you too can own a Jaguar."

Jimmy caught the keys and started for the garage. "If I do, it won't be an old one like yours, buddy boy. I'll have myself something just a little bit newer so the girls will go wild and all my nights will be jam-packed full with dates."

"That's a damn pitiful attitude to take toward women." Jimmy gave him the finger and lumbered out the kitchen door.

~ * ~

Jimmy thought the brakes on the Jag were a little loose when he came to the first stop sign after leaving Karl's house. He shrugged, thinking Karl ought to get it back to the shop, see if they needed checking out. They'd had to change out all the tires so maybe the brakes were new and not set in yet. New brake pads sometimes made an awful racket until they were seated.

By the time Jimmy hit Highway One along the ocean, heading for the big all-night grocery about two miles distant, he had forgotten about the squeaky brakes. He thought he'd get two six-packs, not one, and some chips and dip. What the hell. Maybe they could turn on the tube and catch a ballgame.

He speeded up on the highway, feeling the breeze spinning through the windows. The crisp night air helped to sober him. He could smell the ocean, salty on his tongue and dry in his nostrils. He knew he was grinning like a monkey because the beer had made him feel good, feel easy for a change. He had been worried over Karl for too long. They both deserved one night of drinking and joking around and just relaxing.

He had the Jag up to eighty miles an hour before he noticed his speed and realized he was over the speed limit. Too much over. He put his foot on the brake pedal and eased it down, all the while checking his rearview to see if he could spot any patrol cars.

His foot went straight to the floorboard. The brake pedal seemed not even to be there.

A flash of panic lit a fire in Jimmy's brain. It was as if a white empty landscape opened up in his mind, swallowing all his faculties. No brakes? Did this mean . . . he had no way to stop?

He let up on the brake pedal and tried again. No dice. There were no brakes on the car. It was true. He had no brakes! He was going seventy-five miles an hour now with no way to stop.

He was coming up on a car traveling slower in his lane. He had to swerve over in the passing lane to keep from ramming it. The tires on the Jag sung along the blacktop with a whistling sound.

Jimmy had begun to sweat. The breeze coming in the windows did nothing to cool him down. He felt sick to his stomach and prayed the beer wouldn't back up on him.

No brakes. Brake line probably cut. Brake fluid leaked out.

No brakes, no way to stop.

He glanced down, wondering where the parking brake was on the Jaguar. The moment his attention left the road, a car entered his lane from the right, cutting him off, expecting him to brake and fall back.

The Jag hit it with a bang, snapping Jimmy's head back. Then the Jaguar slid over into the center of the highway, and was slammed head-on by a late model GMC van.

Jimmy never knew what hit him.

He hadn't bothered to buckle his seat belt, not that it would have made a lot of difference.

On impact with the van, the upper half of his body went over the steering wheel and through the windshield. The Jag spun out again, hit the guardrail and flipped over and over through a drainage ditch. It took out four small cottonwood saplings, and, skidding on its roof for a hundred yards, plowed a foot-deep furrow through sand and gravel.

The wheels spun, the tires hissed as they rotated in air, and the engine sizzled. Jimmy Watz died from shock, head injuries, and a severed carotid artery, cut by the broken windshield, before he realized his legs were cut off from the crotch down.

42

"Life is a series of diminishments."

Coleman Dowell, Mrs October Was Here

Karl, frantic with worry, kept going to the front door to look down the street for Jimmy. Where could he have gone for the beer, Australia?

When the call came inquiring if he was the owner of a 1985 silver Jaguar, Karl choked. He could hardly answer the questions, his throat felt so tight. Jimmy Watz was dead. Accident on Ocean Highway. The Jag had been totaled. It had been in a collision and rolled several times. It looked like a gigantic sardine can with the label ripped off.

Karl told them who had been driving. He said yes, he would come identify the body.

Karl wanted to kill. He had no illusions this was a real accident. Jimmy had had a couple of beers, but he had not been drunk. He was a careful driver, a good driver. Once, as students in college together, he and Jimmy had taken a Christmas vacation trip across country. Jimmy was a helluva good driver. He'd saved their lives once on that trip when during a rainstorm a car lost control in front of them and spun out. Karl wasn't sure afterward if he could have been as sure and steady at the wheel under the circumstances. He'd been glad Jimmy had been driving the car.

No, the wreck was staged, that was a certainty. Karl didn't know what had happened, but it wasn't accidental, it was murder. It should have been him in the car, not Jimmy.

Now two people had died because of Karl. Two lives snuffed out.

On the way to the morgue in Jimmy's old 1968 fastback Mustang—driving too fast, feeling reckless with despair—Karl knew what he was going to do. As soon as it was morning, he was going to find the stalker. He wouldn't do another thing until he did that. He didn't care if his business went down the drain, if he went bankrupt, or if he ruined every relationship he had with women. He wasn't going to stop until he had Jimmy's killer. It ended here, now.

~ * ~

Cam, amazed by the scene Jackie Landry had just performed, called for a cut. He rarely complimented his actors because he had discovered praise tended to cause them to slack up. Cam might say, "That's a good take," but rarely did he feel moved to comment beyond that. This time he couldn't help himself. Jackie had been wonderful.

Cam called him over. It was the end of the day and the crew were wrapping up so they could go home.

Jackie looked like a dog about to get a slap on the behind from a rolled newspaper. Where was this guy's confidence? If he had balls, they must be tucked up high.

Robyn had been right; Jackie was meant for the part. He was putting out one hundred and ten percent. Olivia was having to really haul out the big guns to keep from being outshone by him. Ever since Robyn had had that talk with Jackie, the man made the celluloid sizzle.

"I just wanted to tell you how pleased I am with your work today." Cam watched him closely for his response. Jackie grinned. If he had had a tail, he would have been wagging it. Cam almost wanted to backhand him and tell him to act like a man, damnit. Show some spunk, for pete's sake.

"I've been trying to get into the character," Jackie said. "Maybe I finally got it."

"You know I don't usually tell actors how good they've done because it goes to their heads and they start fucking off. But I just wanted you to know that the scene you did today was excellent. It was top quality. It's going to look great in dailies."

"Thanks, Cam."

Cam watched him leave the stage set and thought maybe his shoulders were a little straighter, his head held a little higher. He couldn't figure the guy. He wasn't quite like any other actor Cam worked with. He wondered why he didn't know how good he was. It might be that he'd never had a chance to show what he could do before. His other pictures were box office worthy, but not blockbusters. Or maybe it was because his parents had been famous in the old days. Now that could sometimes pose a problem for young talent. How did you ever fill the old man's or old lady's shoes?

This film could move him right to the head of the class if he kept going. He'd get bigger salary offers than Stallone or Bruce Willis. He might grow into a star as lasting as Eastwood if he kept doing the kind of work he'd done today. He'd be better than his parents combined.

An assistant came up and said, "There's someone to see you in your office. Karl? LaRosa?"

Cam's mood shifted into shadow. "Okay, I'll see about it." What the hell was it now?

Thoughts of the head propped in the front seat of his Cadillac came unbidden to mind. Cam ran a hand over his face, washing it away. Karl couldn't know about that. No one knew about it. They'd be looking for Marilyn for a very long time yet.

The office door was open. Cam hustled to his desk and pulled out the chair there. He twisted around and faced Karl. "What's up? I got to get outta here in a minute, sorry, got some work to finish up."

"Cam, I want a copy of the script."

Cam's eyebrows rose in question then fell into a scowl. "Can't do it, bud. Under wraps."

"I'm not asking you, Cam. I'm telling you. I want a copy of the script. My best friend died last night in my car. The brake line had been cut. I'd just gotten it out of the shop, but they didn't do it. The police still think they might have made a mistake. They can't prove the line was cut or if it snapped in the wreck. They're telling me to file a claim against the shop; they can't bring charges unless there's a clear-cut piece of evidence. But I know it wasn't a mechanic's mistake. Someone was trying to kill me. Someone on your set did it."

"I'm sorry to hear about your friend, but I assure you . . ."

"No excuses, Cam. I don't get the script, I go straight back to the cops. I think they can get me a script, don't you?" Karl rose from his chair. "I probably wasted my time coming here. I should have told the cops what I know. How my life's been following your filming. I didn't want you to have trouble because I made a promise to someone. I know how much this project means to you and Robyn. I've kept it unofficial for her sake. I've tried to handle this on my own."

Cam leapt from his chair and circled the desk. He put a staying hand on Karl's shoulder. "Now wait a fucking minute. It's no problem getting you a script. Here, let me check . . ." He turned back and pulled out a key from his pocket. He unlocked a desk drawer and rummaged in it. Extracting a green metallic-colored binder, he grinned so wide his gums showed. "See, got one right here. You won't let it out, right? No one else reads it?"

"Give me a break," Karl said. He took the script, turned his back and left the office.

Cam noticed he was sweating. His armpits were wet and he smelled like a bricklayer. "Shit," he mumbled, watching Karl's back as it retreated across the soundstage. "What a fucker." What he thought privately was that it might be a good thing if whoever was up to tricks with the script actually succeeded. Karl looked like a hard-ass who needed a long walk off a short pier.

~ * ~

Karl sat on the sofa in his house skimming over the next scenes in the script of Pure and Uncut. The first he knew he was not alone was when a bullet came through the closed door of his bedroom, splintering the paneling. He flinched back and his gut tightened up. The script pages flapped shut in his lap.

Then there was a barrage of shots peppering the door and Karl was up in a flash, moving through the living room, leaping over furniture, heading for the hall and the study beyond. He heard wood and glass breaking behind him. The pops from the gun sounded muffled, as if someone were using a silencer. Karl's own gun was in the drawer of the bedside table in the room where the shots were coming from. He was unarmed. He must reach the phone, call for help.

He slammed the study door and locked it, then noticed what a flimsy push button indoor lock he had on the door. One kick could disable it.

No time to worry about what he couldn't change. He ran for the desk and grabbed the phone there. He was punching in 911 before he realized there was no dial tone. Oh Christ.

Gunshots came from outside the closed study door and the window behind Karl exploded. It sounded to his ears like a train had slammed through the wall. Glass fell all around him in a shivery transparent shower. Glass cut and slit his skin on his neck and arms. He dropped to the floor and crawled beneath the desk. He was breathing through his mouth, harsh rasping sounds of a man under siege. He'd never been more afraid in his life. For one instant he remembered watching on television the taking of the Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. The ATF in their bulletproof vests storming the building.

That's what he felt like now. Like David Koresh; outgunned, outmanned, doomed. Any second one of those many random shots might take him out.

There was a lull. Karl held his breath. Suddenly the shots came again, as if the person on the other side of the door had reloaded. The door must be riddled by now, holes all in it.

It finally dawned on Karl that whoever it was out there meant to terrorize rather than kill. If she wanted Karl dead, she could have simply opened the bedroom door, walked into the living room and shot him dead where he sat. He'd never known anyone was in the house. The damn alarm system had failed again.

The whole thing was mapped out in the plot of the script.

This didn't mean Karl was going to stand up and take a bullet. It just meant he understood something important about what was going on. While he puzzled over it, the gunfire stopped and this time didn't resume. After another five minutes of silence, Karl came out from beneath the desk and walked to the door. It was splintered and battered. One of the hinges had been blasted loose. Karl reached out for the doorknob, paused a second with his hand around it, then jerked it open. The door keeled to one side and he had to hold it up to keep it from snapping off the lower hinge.

Maybe now he'd be killed, though he thought not. He'd read this scene in the script just before shots erupted from his bedroom. The hero had not been shot in the script. He'd been forced to run, hide, and finally the shooter disappeared into thin air.

The hall beyond stood empty.

After searching the house, Karl knew the intruder was gone. Just like in the script.

Karl left the house through the kitchen exit to the garage. Started up the Mustang.

He was going to see Robyn. She had to help him.

~ * ~

She saw him coming from across the room. She was in Heaven, the top level of the Universe. A girl of Asian extraction sang slow, sad songs that had a hypnotic effect on the room. Embracing couples on the dance floor locked in swaying trances. Over at the end of the bar a man with a bad tic in his left eye kept sending signals Robyn's way. He was too paunchy for her. Naked he'd look like a slab of fatty beef.

She sipped at her third gin and tonic, ignoring the guy on the barstool and watching Karl make his way toward her. She knew he'd want to talk about Marilyn. How she'd warned him about the script and then came up missing. Robyn didn't know what to say about that. I'm sorry, she'd say, it's out of hand, she'd say, what can I do, what do you want me to do? Maybe she got scared, maybe she left town, who the hell knows where she went? Though it was passing strange that she would desert a film that could have made her into a box office name.

Karl looked the worse for wear. His tie was askew, his shirttail half pulled from the back of his trousers. He might be drunk. His eyes, underscored with puffy-looking bags, looked haunted. There was a day's growth of whiskers on his cheeks and his hair was mussed. Maybe he'd been mugged.

Robyn straightened, thrusting out her breasts, and happened to see the man at the bar give her a wolfish grin. She turned to the side in order to block him out.

Karl came right up to her and took her by the arm. "Come with me," he said, pulling her across the dance floor.

She held back and finally jerked her arm free. "Now wait a damn minute, what's this about?"

"We need to talk. Not here. Let's go."

"Karl, I don't have to do what you say anymore. Now let's go have a—"

"Come with me now." His voice rose enough that people around them looked over at her.

"Oh, all right. Let me get my purse." She found it lying on the bar and followed him down the stairs through the next level to the ground floor. Music pulsated at their backs. Robyn always wanted to wiggle her ass to the drum beats. She'd consumed just enough liquor to think how funny she'd look if she started doing that while walking and giggled to herself. Laughter sifted through the smoke and smiling faces greeted them as they moved toward the door. Mercy, how she loved this place. She'd live here if they rented out beds.

Outside the club they had to weave through a young crowd of gaudily clad night kids debating whether they wanted to stay to see the headliner or cruise some other place. A couple of the young Turks gave her a look that she appreciated. She smiled at them.

Karl had Robyn's hand, pulling her along behind him. She stifled the maternal urge that suggested she reach out and tuck in his shirt. He was no child. He wasn't even her husband anymore; what was wrong with her every time she got around him? He wanted to look like a slob, let him.

In the parking lot, Karl headed for a cherry red Mustang. What was he doing, having a flashback from the sixties?

When he reached the car, he turned around to face her. He took her arms just above the elbows and looked down into her eyes. "Jimmy's dead."

She knew she was slow on the uptake due to the alcohol, but no matter how she tried to roll those words around in her head she couldn't quite get them to come up lucky seven. Jimmy's dead, she thought, that's what he said. Jimmy is dead.

"Jimmy Watz?" She had known Jimmy almost as long as Karl. In fact the first time she ever met Karl, he was with Jimmy. They'd all been friends a long time.

"He took my Jag after I got it from the shop. He was going to get beer. The brake line was cut—I think it was cut. The police went over the car and say they can't be sure, but I say it was deliberately cut. Jimmy wrecked it on the freeway, the car rolled. Jimmy . . . he was . . . Jimmy was . . . Goddamnit, he was cut in two. They had to use the Jaws of Life to take out his legs."

Robyn felt the world drop out beneath her feet. Karl steadied her. She heard him say, "Whoa." She blinked a few times and understood then what Karl was telling her. Someone had rigged his Jag expecting him to drive it. But Jimmy drove it and Jimmy died. Jimmy was . . .

"Cut in two? Oh no. No."

"Robyn, you have to help me find out who did it. And there's something else . . ."

Robyn didn't think there could be anything else Karl could tell her that had the same importance as losing Jimmy. She and Jimmy kept in touch, even after the divorce. Jimmy knew how to love both of them without splitting his loyalties. He never said an unkind word about Karl when with her and she was confident he never uttered an unkind word about her when he was with Karl. Jimmy was her friend and she hurt all over right now. It felt like someone had just socked her in the chest.

"What else?" she asked, uninterested. All she wanted to do was go back into the Universe and get rotten, stinking drunk. She'd get flying-ace, falling-down drunk and go home to pass out so she wouldn't have to think another sensible thought for the next twenty four hours.

"Someone called me and said the body parts found all over Hollywood belonged to Marilyn."

Oh now, see, one unexpected body shot after another and the fighter goes down. Robyn dropped all the way this time. Her knees gave out and she collapsed. Karl eased her to the concrete parking lot until she was sitting, her legs folded beneath her. She hung her head crying silently.

"That's not in the script," she said. Hadn't everything followed the script? This didn't. The deaths of Marilyn and Jimmy had nothing do with the script.

"I know. I've read it."

"This wasn't supposed to happen."

"No. It wasn't."

She looked up at him where he squatted next to her. She noticed he held her hand and was patting it in an old-fashioned way, like a gentleman, like Errol Flynn in one of his Arthurian legend films.

"Someone cut Marilyn into pieces?" she asked. "And someone fixed the brakes on your car and killed Jimmy?"

"Yes, someone did. She killed Marilyn for telling me about the script. She killed Jimmy while trying to kill me. We have to stop her."

"Who?"

Karl leaned his forehead against the top of her head. He whispered, "I thought you could tell me."

43

"No more tears now; I will think upon revenge."

Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland,

Attributed remark, 9 March 1566,

after the murder of her favorite, David Rizzio

It was almost noon with the sun like a gold globe hung as a centerpiece in the sky. Karl stood grieving at the graveside service for Jimmy Watz. Karl wore a dark suit and a snow-white shirt. A small white carnation perched on his lapel. He hardly heard the minister's words or noticed the other mourners. The sun was too bright, the pain too sharp, the loss too deep.

More than forty miles away, oblivious to death and burial, Olivia Nyad slowly removed her secretary's bra and cupped the woman's small pointed breasts in both hands.

"I'm glad you're not needed on the set today," Janice said, pushing back Olivia's hair.

"I'm glad too." Pat Connors nuzzled Olivia's spine just at the base where her hips began to swell. He then reclined easily on the bed, assessing the two women who would be his playthings for the day. Connors worked as a masseur for Hollywood stars. Olivia employed him periodically to come to her house. Sometimes, like today, he had a chance to do more than massage sore, tired muscles.

"You don't mind sharing?" Olivia asked Connors. She moved from Janice's breasts to the erect nipples on Connors' chest. Her tongue flicked out again and again until she felt him shiver.

"Not a bit," he said. He pulled Olivia onto his chest. "Threesome's are a turn-on." He felt Janice slide a hand up the inside of one thigh. "Two birds in a hand, as they say."

Olivia gave her husky laugh. "First time I've ever been called a bird. A bitch, I understand. A bird, though . . . That's British, right?"

The trio spent the day sweating and rolling around on the bed. Fueled by any kind of drug they wanted to sample from Olivia's stash box, the three fell into a sexual frenzy. Positions were tried, sex toys were dragged out of the closet, and in another part of the house the telephone answering machine took a seemingly endless barrage of calls.

During a break when Olivia wandered to the kitchen for more champagne, the phone rang again. She swore and picked up the receiver. Interrupting her playtime was never a good idea. She barked, "Who the hell is this and what do you want?" into the phone.

Karl said, "Whatever you're doing, stop it. Meet me in Burbank in an hour."

She started to protest, but Karl overcame all her objections, as usual, and gave her the restaurant's address.

She hung up, mumbling to herself about how her chain was always yanked by Karl, the bastard. All he had to do was tell her to drop everything and come running and what did she do? She came running.

Her head swirling with crazy images, her thoughts zinging along a high wire with a feeling of accelerated speed, she stumbled toward the bedroom and her companions. "Okay, holiday's over. I have to make a run. Get dressed, get out, it was lovely. We'll do it again sometime."

Janice was used to Olivia's abrupt commands, but Connors, zoned out now on downers, said in slurred speech, "My bird's flying away. I want my bird."

Olivia threw his clothes across his naked, glistening body. "I said get out, honey. You want your bonus, you'll do what I say."

Janice kissed the back of Olivia's neck where she was bent over to start the water running in the shower. "See you later."

When Olivia exited from her bath, Connors was gone, the bed rumpled but empty. God, until now, the day had been a thrill ride. She hoped Karl wasn't on the rag.

~ * ~

Karl knew she was wired the minute she came through the door of the restaurant. She walked in a jittery stop-and-go fashion like some hophead kid hunting the next crack high. Her wide-eyed stare flicked here and there, searching him out. Once he was spotted, she fairly flew over. The perfumed breeze from her quick slide into the seat across from him wafted past his face.

He studied her dilated pupils. "What are you on, Olivia?"

She stretched her head back and flexed her shoulders. "Nothing much. Is that why you wanted me to meet you? To give me a lecture on the evils of drugs? If so, I have a bulletin for you. It's none of your business, Mr. LaRosa. In fact, your ass wouldn't be in such a tight pinch if you tried some yourself. A little recreation might get rid of that frown on your old Gloomy Gus face." She laughed, thinking herself right clever.

"This is important," he said, not wishing to be drawn into a debate. Olivia could be a hellcat if she felt the least bit threatened or put down. "I needed to talk to you sober."

"You think I'm not sober? Shit, Karl, since when did you get up on this high horse to see the rest of the world? I'm fine. You wanna talk, talk. You don't wanna talk, I'm out the door. I left a splendid hard-on lying in my bed to come here today."

"Fine." He had never been fond of Olivia's vulgar manners. "Someone cut the brake line to my car, my Jaguar. I'd just gotten it out of the shop. My friend Jimmy Watz—remember Jimmy?"

She nodded.

"Jimmy drove my car to buy some beer three nights ago. He had a wreck going approximately seventy miles an hour. No brakes."

"Good grief." Olivia put a hand over her eyes and looked down at the table. When the waitress came for her order, Karl asked for hot tea.

"Olivia, you need to help me. I was supposed to be in the Jag. Because of me, Jimmy's dead. And he isn't the only one. Marilyn, the actress missing from the script you're shooting? The killer called me and said the dismembered parts found all over Hollywood belonged to Marilyn. I don't know if that's true because forensic homicide came up with zilch when they ran the fingerprints. And as far as I know they haven't found . . ."

"Her head," Olivia said.

"That's right."

"My god. You think someone on the set is the killer. I can see why you think that. It's the only thing that makes sense because most of what's happened to you has followed the script. Or is it you think it's me? You really called me down here because you wanted me to confess. Is that it, Karl?"

"If you did this, Olivia, it's time to confess, yes, it's high time."

Before he knew it was coming, her hand reached out and slapped him soundly across the cheek. He came up halfway out of the booth and felt like crawling over the table. He sat back down, breathing hard. His cheek burned like charcoal in a brazier. "I'm not taking any more bullshit, Olivia. What do you want from me? Isn't it enough two innocent people have died?"

She pushed from the seat and stood shakily. "That dog won't hunt," she said. She looked down at him and gave a grim smile. "You need someone to lay the blame on, look somewhere else. What about Robyn? She's the only one you ever fucking married. She always had the whole script. What about Catherine? Of the four of us—me, Marilyn, Robyn, and Cathy—she'd be my bet." She turned away and began to leave but turned and came close to him. She spoke in a low, steely voice. Her breath was sour from alcohol and whatever pills she had been taking all day. Just for a second or two, he was afraid of her.

"If you ever accuse me of murder again . . . if you ever accuse me of anything again, I'll never speak to you the rest of your lousy, fucking life. I might have slept with you, I might have an old flame still burning for you, but I mean this. Don't do this to me again, Karl."

Karl watched her leave. He brought his hand up to his hot cheek. The waitress brought over the pot of tea and he poured himself a cup. They served good green China tea strong enough to open his nasal passages. He breathed in the bitter scent before sipping the tea. He felt too alone. Stranded without a friend in the world.

What was he to think about Olivia? He had ruled out Robyn. He had lived with the woman for several years. Would she kill him? She didn't even miss him from her life, why would she bother to hurt him?

Besides, unless she had taken a crash course in computer technology, she couldn't be the one snooping in his files, making changes that disrupted his whole life. She couldn't have disarmed his alarm system so many times, much less found and cut the brake lines on the jag. He knew her. Or he used to. She was about as mechanically talented as a crippled hedgehog.

No, Robyn had come to the point that she had everything she wanted out of life. The life she cultivated didn't include him. She had nothing to gain in hurting him. Nor would she have chanced Jimmy's death. She certainly didn't fake the shock she felt when told he'd died.

Maybe it wasn't Olivia either. It didn't seem to be Olivia. He knew she was a great actress, that at any time she might be acting, but the slap she had given him came out of deep hurt and heartfelt indignity. She couldn't have rehearsed that.

He had to admit though, he could hardly believe Cat might be the stalker either.

And if those women involved in the script didn't fit a stalker's profile, who did? What unknown enemy had he unintentionally harmed so badly that his death was decreed?

He looked over the rim of his teacup and watched a family being seated not far from him. Mother, father, two children, a boy and a girl. The boy was blond and thin with wire-rimmed glasses which gave his eyes an owlish stare. The little girl was around three and she wore a party dress, all pink ruffles and bows. For the first time in a long while he envied the family life and wished he had made one for himself. Robyn hadn't been able to have children and she didn't want any anyway. Since his divorce, he had put away thoughts of a family. Could he settle down with Lisa, make children, grow old and gray and become a grandfather one day?

Well, he could, that's what Lisa wanted. He could if he could stay alive long enough.

After one more go-around with Catherine, he'd have to try to reorganize his thoughts. He might have to throw out all earlier presumptions and start over again in another direction. Perhaps it wasn't a past lover at all, despite the mash notes. The phone call he'd received still nagged at him. It might have been a man. What if it was a man trying to set all the evidence up to make it look like a woman was stalking him?

Hell. A man!

Hadn't the voice on the phone been asexual, an indefinable gender with the voice tones low, but neither definitely masculine nor feminine?

It could be anyone trying to kill him. Anyone at all.

The thought lodged in his brain and would not go away. It was more frightening than the thought an old wounded lover was out to ruin and kill him. If his stalker was a man, then how could he ever determine the reason behind it? Nothing so easy as a woman scorned to make the motives clear. But a man? What had he ever done to deserve such an elaborate plan? This seemed to be a mystery that was growing like a box of poison mushrooms in a cellar; undercover, silent, and deadly.

A headache bloomed just up from the back of his neck and he rubbed his scalp there over the rounded ridge of bone. He would see Catherine again and try to rule her out. One step at a time, methodically, he would find out who had killed Jimmy and Marilyn.

44

"She's gone. I am abused, and my relief

Must be to loathe her."

William Shakespeare, Othello

The Body woke in the closet. It was black as darkest night though it must be early morning for the mind to feel so alert. A breeze from the overhead fan stirred the air. Reaching out both arms, The Body's fingers just brushed the walls on either side of the mattress on the floor. It was understood that sleeping in a small cramped space such as the closet in the child's room was tantamount to returning to the womb. However, understanding a psychological motivation did not always clear up the source of the underlying need. The closet provided safety, enclosure, and comfort, of course. A bed in an open room did not. Why the small net of safety was so needful might have to do with seeing Michelle's ghost (she never came to The Body in the closet) or it might be that a return to wombness preserved the mind that was attacked from all sides out in the wide, dangerous world. There was nothing and no one in the closet to betray The Body. There might be a stray single spider weaving a web in one of the corners or around the base of the ceiling fan, but other than that the closet belonged to one living being and no other.

It was time to sit up, crawl to the door, and greet the day. There was nothing more refreshing than a full night's rest in perfect surroundings to prepare a body for the ultimate scene.

On the chair sitting before the computer in the nursery the script lay open and face down. The Body took it up and flipped it over. Here was the climax. When acted on the silver screen, it would be a stunning piece of work. When carried out in reality, it would surpass the screen image by a hundredfold.

Karl LaRosa might have succumbed in any scene leading up to this one, yet he had survived. It was preordained that he survive until the end shot, the culmination scene, the denouement of the tale.

When the phone rang, The Body placed the open script on the white desk next to the computer and wandered into the kitchen where a wall phone hung next to a framed picture of a hummingbird frozen in flight over a bright red feeder.

"Hello?"

"Hi, glad I caught you at home."

It was Olivia. Bright as a cottontail bunny this morning, her voice sparkling with cheer.

"I just got up. What do you need?"

"You sound cranky."

"I'm not."

"Well, shake a leg. We have that scene today and I was wondering if you'd meet me early on the set so we could rehearse. I want to do it right."

"I guess I can go in early. When?"

"An hour? We'll have the place mostly to ourselves before catering gets there."

"Sure, okay."

The Body hung up carefully. Olivia, the hated one. Not as hated as Catherine, but no one was as hated as Catherine. Olivia was too damn pitiful to hate that much. She was talented, but ditzy and on top of that, a heavy drug user. Not that half the people in the movie didn't use drugs, but none with such uncaring abandon as Olivia. She had sometimes shown up for a shoot with her eyes so glassy Cam had to put off the filming until he had plied her with two pots of coffee and whatever drug might counteract the one she'd taken. If she was on tranqs and lethargic, Cam got a few hits of speed for her. If she was high flying on cocaine or crank (or twice lately, when she admitted to having cooked just a little bit of smack, just a little tiny bit), he found something to bring her down. Not without cursing like a bandit whose treasure had been stolen. And stomping around and threatening to fire her off the film, but no one believed that, not even Olivia, who continued to abuse herself to the detriment of the project. Silly old bitch.

She had sounded too damn full of snap, crackle, pop for this early in the morning. Hell, dawn hadn't even broken and a pewter light heavy with falling dew still swirled over the lawns, flowerbeds, and white poplar trees in the neighborhood.

No time then to study the scene, to work out the plan for Karl LaRosa's swan song. It would have to be put off until tomorrow. One more day before the end could not matter one way or the other. That the final chapter was close gave The Body an electric feeling of power.

45

"Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live."

Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar

The babies would have given The Body a reason to live. The twins. The dead ones who would have lived in the nursery. That's what the new crib was for, the mobile, the colorful wallpaper. The Body believed Catherine loved him, loved him, loved him so much. He believed she would have his babies, she would marry him first, and have his babies.

But she left him and she killed the babies so that she could have an affair with another man. With Karl.

Oh, how The Body grieved. As much as for poor Michelle.

No one had ever loved The Body except for Michelle. Not mother or father. Not really. They were too busy with their professional lives to love their children.

Catherine had not loved him.

The twins would have. If she'd carried them to term and let him have them to raise. They would have loved him with such fierce loyalty that no one could have parted the three of them, ever.

As a child growing up, The Body had tried very hard to be like other children. But without Michelle, it was impossible.

It was as if half of him was missing. He was a shadow, superficial, not really all there.

He had a friend once. In junior high school. A boy named Davy Cotersill. He even told Davy about Michelle and how he missed her, how bereft he was yet. And Davy didn't make fun of him.

But then, after a few months of close friendship where he and Davy rode their bicycles everywhere together, and went to the same parties, and played tennis on their parents' tennis courts until after dinnertime, something began to happen. The Body noticed it first, but was unable to stop it from happening. He started first with the haircut. He went to the barbershop and had them cut his hair just like Davy's. Short on the sides, long on top. Then The Body found out where Davy's mother shopped for clothes and he had his own mother take him there and buy him a new wardrobe. He picked out the same style of jeans, the same shirts, belts, socks, and shoes. Finally, when Davy began to notice and look at him strangely, The Body had his father buy him a bicycle just like Davy's. Dark blue ten-speed Schwinn. When he took it over to show his friend, that's when Davy accused him of being some kind of clown.

"What's the matter with you?" Davy asked. "It's like you're sucking me in. It's like you're becoming me. What happened to your clothes, your hair, and now you got a bicycle like mine. Is this a joke or what? I don't like it if it's a joke. It feels funny looking at you now when you're starting to look like my twin or something."

The Body hung his head and scuffed his Reebok that was the same kind of Reebok that Davy wore. "I just like you, Davy."

"Well, it's okay to like me and it's flattering to be copied up to a point, but this is ridiculous! When school starts and you do this, other kids are gonna make fun of us. They'll think we're dating or something, for crying out loud.”

“No, they won't, they won't even notice . . ."

"Yes, they will! They'll think we're fags. You're not a fag, are you? You don't want my body, do you?"

The Body felt the insult right down to his toes. He had never even entertained such nasty thoughts. Of course he didn't want to have sex with Davy. He just wanted . . . he wanted to be like him. He wanted to be like . . . someone.

They had had a big row and wound up swinging at one another. Davy's dad had to come outdoors and break them up. The Body went home with a bloody nose and never spoke to Davy again. He threw all his new clothes in the trash. He let his hair grow out long and scraggly.

He never tried to have a best friend again.

Because friends disappoint you. Sisters die on you. Lovers betray you.

Only his own children would have given him the kind of unconditional love he had always wished for. And Catherine never even asked him if he wanted those children. Before her pregnancy, if asked, he would have said a woman had the right to make that sort of decision on her own. But after it involved the loss of a set of twins he wanted in his own life—to save him from loneliness and despair—he realized he did not believe it was a woman's sole right to make the decision. The babies were half his! His sperm had created them. Their cells came from his cells, their genetic makeup came partially from him, and even the fact that Catherine had come up pregnant with twins had to do with him being a twin.

Once she had destroyed them, The Body could hardly go on. No use to reproach her. A modern woman. A career woman, like his mother. She wouldn't have listened to him. She probably didn't even know now how much pain she had given him.

Or how much she would have to pay for her sin against life. If he knew of a way to murder her and never be suspected, he would have long ago done it.

The script was the only way he knew to bring harm to her. He had harbored his hate for all these years, through her dismissal of Karl, and her marriage and her new pregnancy, and the birth of her little girl, who he coveted. That hate had done something irrevocable to his soul, he knew that. It had warped him. It had left him half sane. He was functional in society, but not a part of it. He could never be right again because of her.

Finally, if he could finish up the shooting of the script and he could kill Karl so that Catherine was suspected, he might find a little peace. Or at least more than he'd ever enjoyed before. Michelle's ghost might not desert him, and his hunger for his lost children might not ever leave him, but at least Catherine would feel a little of what he had endured all these many lonely years.

The murders he had performed so far had left not a smudge of guilt on his conscience. He would feel nothing for Karl when he died, either. And nothing for what Catherine would be put through.

For The Body knew what to do once Catherine was out of the way.

He would take her little girl, steal away Barbara, and he would make her his own. If he could not have the babies who had been his flesh and blood, he would at least have a small child he could pretend was his own to share his life with and to be a father to. She was still young enough to learn to love him.

Dear Karl,

I know you know why you were picked now. She'll be blamed because it's her fault you're going to die.

Good-bye, Karl. It's been fun.

XXXX

OOOO

Same cream-colored stationery, folded as usual in half. Karl read the note over again. It had been slipped between the windshield wiper and the glass on his new BMW parked in the lot next to his office.

Karl looked up at the roar of a car engine, fearing his death was coming in the form of a hit and run. He stood pinned between the BMW and the building, expecting to see a car racing toward him.

But no. The car he'd heard was on the nearby street and it was not turning into the lot. It sped away from the stoplight at the corner, leaving burned rubber and acrid smoke in its wake. Just some hotrod crazy kid.

Karl took a deep breath. How great it was to be alive—and he had to stay that way—on this balmy night.

He stared at the note again. Someone was going to be framed for his murder. That's what this was about all along. He'd been thrown off the trail with the love notes. Biggest mistake he'd ever made. One that was testament to his vanity. Who else, he had thought, would hurt me but a wronged woman? The stalker had depended on his vanity and ego to keep his identity safe. It had worked, hadn't it?

He had to tell this to the detective working on the case. Morales. The man who didn't believe Karl was in any real danger or that the department needed to expend a lot of time and effort running down the fingerprints they had lifted from his wrecked Jaguar.

Karl turned from the car and hurried back to the office to use the telephone. He was in such a hurry, he didn't bother to lock the door behind him although it was past office hours and all his employees were gone for the day. He had just gotten Detective Morales on his extension line when Karl heard the front door open, a few seconds of silence pass, and then the door closed.

"Hold on," he told Morales. Dropping the phone, he moved quickly around the desk and through his office door into the outer waiting room. His senses, tuned to any hint of a change in the routine, caused him to smell first the overpowering scent of gasoline, then he saw the smoke before the noticed the fire. He was faced in the waiting room with confirmation of his fears. Flame rose in a line across the carpet from one end of the room to the other. The fire licked the walls and reached out for the upholstered chairs. His eyes widened in runaway fear. Something primitive and dark as a large worm turning over in his belly uncoiled so that his arms broke out in goose bumps and he felt paralyzed.

His heart kicked into an irregular rhythm. He gulped and smoke filled his mouth. The whole room was dimming and blackening with smoke. An oily, thick cloud of it streamed from the carpet and roiled in ugly, thickening corkscrews near the ceiling. He was forced back, the heat already intense, the flames licking and gliding like orange-red wraiths from floor to ceiling.

Turning, feeling himself drop into a dreamy state, everything set to slow-mo, he slammed the door to his office with a bang that sounded like thunder. The sound galvanized him. He grabbed the phone and yelled, "I'm in my office. It's on fire! The whole building's going to go up."

It was a moment before he realized his call had been put on hold. Muzak played over the receiver. He dropped the phone and panic overrode his thinking. Black smoke billowed from beneath the door. Soon the doorknob would melt and the door would turn into a wall of flame. He couldn't hear any sirens of fire trucks. Maybe no one yet knew the place was on fire.

What should he save? All his records were here. Had Lois backed them up on the computer and had she deposited the tape backups in the safety deposit box the way he had asked her?

Save nothing, get out, his mind screamed. Get out now!

Something that sounded like a small bomb blew up in the outer waiting room. The computer monitor. The whole place was going up.

Without further thought, he lifted the big desk chair onto his right shoulder and ran with it toward the window. He hurled it forward and brought both his arms up to protect his face from flying glass. The crash was drowned in the roar of the fire from the other room. The chair had gone through the glass and tumbled across the sidewalk to the gutter.

Karl looked back once before climbing over the jagged glass edge of the window frame. He saw fire had eaten through the door. Only then did he remember this scene from the script—all except the note left on his BMW. It was uncanny how the script showed the lead trapped in an office with the only way out a large window. He'd even used the office chair to break out. He'd had a feeling of déjà vu from the moment he'd heard the outer door open. He should have been on alert, but how could he know when the stalker would try to implement the script scene? He might know what was coming, but never when.

As he stepped out into fresh air, his fear subsiding now that he was out of the fiery building, a blow fell on the back of his head. Karl slumped to the sidewalk, unconscious.

~ * ~

PERRY JOHNS: Detective Apollina, please. This is an emergency.

POLICE OPERATOR: Your name, sir?

PERRY JOHNS: Perry Johns.

POLICE OPERATOR: All right, hold a minute, while I see if the detective is in.

There's a suspicious crackling sound that draws PERRY's attention from the desk.

INTERIOR-FRONT WAITING ROOM: Front door snicking shut. Flame bursting from poured gasoline, leaping out of control, engulfing the exit.

CLOSE UP: PERRY standing in open door between waiting room and his office, shocked at the fire raging across the floor and moving up the walls.

INTERIOR-OFFICE: PERRY slams shut the door and rushes to grab up the phone.

PERRY JOHNS: Apollina! The waiting room's on fire. I can't get out the front of the building!

DETECTIVE APOLLINA: I'll alert the fire department. Do you have a window or a rear exit?

PERRY JOHNS: I've got a plate glass window. I'll have to break it out. I can't get from my office to the back door.

DETECTIVE APOLLINA: Someone will be right there. Get out now.

PERRY drops the phone, picks up the chair behind the desk and throws it through the wide window that faces the sidewalk. He crawls through, relieved to be away from the flames.

FADE OUT.

~ * ~

The Body raised the pipe again to strike a killing blow, but a car slammed its brakes on the street and pulled over awkwardly to the curb, the tires bumping up over the concrete lip. The grill halted no more than a foot from The Body. Time to go. No time to finish it.

He swiveled and ran away, throwing down the pipe as he ran. He turned down the next street at the corner, looking back over his shoulder to see the driver of the car wasn't following. A man had come from the vehicle and was squatting next to Karl.

The goddamn luck.

~ * ~

Karl did not come to until he had been moved away from the burning building so the firefighters could get their hoses across the sidewalk where he had been lying. He woke with a massive headache and his vision all out of whack. There were two Morales clones staring down into his face. So many teeth. So many eyes.

"You okay, buddy? There's an ambulance on the way."

Karl struggled to a sitting position. "I don't need an ambulance." He felt the back of his head where a goose egg knot had risen.

"You might have a concussion, need to get it checked out."

Karl remembered the note. She would be blamed, it had said. What if the bastard had left evidence somewhere near the building? The evidence could belong to Robyn or to anyone he'd ever dated. He couldn't let the fire inspector find it.

"Here. Help me up."

Morales took his arm and pulled him to his feet. Karl felt a little light-headed, but it passed. He stared at the building. Half of the roof was gutted. Smoke and an occasional cloud of sparks still streamed toward the night sky. The fire appeared to be put out, or almost. Firefighters still pumped in gallons of water.

Where would the stalker leave evidence? Near the front of the building where he'd entered, Karl assumed. He couldn't leave it inside in the fire, of course.

Morales was talking to a uniformed officer. Karl took his time walking slowly away from them, rubbing the back of his head, and toward the building. He passed over the thick snake-like water hoses and past two firefighters. They paid him no attention. Everyone was involved in doing their jobs. An investigator wouldn't arrive until later, maybe after the fire was completely out.

The front door was burned completely up. A gaping black hole spewed foul scorched odors of plastic wafting from within. Karl went closer, his eyes on the sidewalk. He saw light glinting off the pen. It was burnished stainless steel, a slim ballpoint, expensive. He leaned down and picked it up, stuck it in his shirt pocket. He looked for anything else out of the ordinary, but it was dark and he couldn't see a thing but puddles of sooty water speckled with flakes of burned material.

Karl wished he had the note, but it was gone. He had taken it with him inside when he first meant to call the detective. He could see it now in his mind's eye. He'd dropped it on the desk as he dialed.

Well, at least he had the pen.

Morales scared him by coming up from behind and placing a hand on his shoulder. "This is tough," he said. "Looks like a firebug. You smell anything in there when the fire started?"

"Yeah, gasoline."

"I want that list of women you were supposed to get together for me. I want it now."

Hell. How could he explain anything to Morales? It would sound insane. He nodded his head. "I'll get it for you."

Morales cocked his head and he gave Karl a curious stare. "You do want to find out who has been doing this, don't you? You could have been killed in there."

"Of course I want to know who it is. Why?"

"You just seem reluctant about the list. I've been after you to give it to me for three days."

"So you believe me now."

"Oh, you mean your friend's death in your Jaguar. Look, I'm not with the investigative team that checks out wrecks. I'm not the one who couldn't verify whether the brake line was cut or sheared during impact. I happen to be on your side, Mr. LaRosa, whether the wreck was accidental or not."

Karl nodded. He couldn't trust himself to speak in a civil manner with the detective. The whole police department had been completely ineffective in his opinion. They put him off. They didn't return his calls. They didn't follow up on his complaints. What was he supposed to do now, give thanks they finally believed he had a life-threatening situation on his hands?

"LaRosa?"

"Yeah." He had been drifting and he must have looked like a man in shock. His head felt as if a hammer was repeatedly pounding a nail into one spot at the back of his skull.

"You need to let the paramedics look you over."

"No. I'm fine."

He knew what he would do. He would find out who owned the stainless steel pen in his pocket. Then he'd have a direct line to the man who was so determined to kill him.

He ought to tell Morales. He ought to tell him about the phone call from the killer claiming to have committed the murder of Marilyn Lori-Street.

This wasn't just arson. Blood thrown in his office. Ransacking his house or wrecking his Jaguar.

People were dead.

"You don't look so good," Morales said, taking his arm.

Karl let himself be dragged over to the ambulance that had just arrived. Maybe they had some aspirin for the headache. Ibuprofen. Morphine! Any damn thing to stop the pounding.

"Is my BMW all right?" he asked Morales on the way to the open back of the ambulance.

"It's fine. The fire was controlled before it took out that wall."

"Sometimes I get lucky."

Morales looked at him and gave a toothy grin that brightened his dark Hispanic face. "I'd say you're one of the luckiest sons of bitches in town, LaRosa."

Karl couldn't dispute that.

~ * ~

"Look, I know it's late, but I've got to talk to you." Karl was on his cellular phone while driving the BMW toward North Hollywood.

"I was just going out," Cambridge Hill said.

"Don't. Don't go anywhere until I get there. Unless you want me to talk to the cops instead."

There was a groan. "Okay, shit, come on over then. Make it snappy."

The paramedics had given him three Tylenol tablets, but they weren't helping. Maybe he did have a concussion. Now his neck was so stiff he could hardly turn his head. When he did turn his head, his vision wavered. Hell. He was in no shape to argue with Cam. But he had no time to waste, either, headache or no headache.

Cam opened the door, took one look at Karl, and ushered him inside, clucking like a mother hen. "What the hell happened, man? You look like you've been run over by a tractor trailer."

"Close. My office was set on fire and I had to break out a window to escape. When I got outside, someone hit me over the back of the head with something. It felt like a sledgehammer." He turned completely around to show Cam the swelling on his head.

"Jesus. That must hurt like a son of a bitch."

Karl faced him again. "I have the script now, but it's not enough, Cam. I knew the office fire was coming, but I didn't know when. I'm going to have to tell the police what I know."

Cam went up like a Roman candle. He seemed to grow five inches taller, he stuck out his chest, he paced like a wild man, running both hands through his hair. "Can't do that," he said. "Can't do that, uh uh, no way."

"Cam, listen. I read the fire scene in the script, but I had no idea it would happen tonight after everyone was gone. I made one dumb mistake. I had locked the office and was going to my car to drive home. I found a note on the windshield. I went back in to make a phone call and . . ."

"Someone poured gasoline in your office and set it off."

"Right. I'd forgotten to lock the door behind me. How many lives do you think I have left? And another thing," Karl said. "That actress you're missing? The guy who's after me killed her. It's because of me she's dead. We once had a fling, a short one, and she insisted I be told about the script. So this isn't just a case of harassment, Cam. You've got a murderer on the set. Are you going to let more people die for the sake of a movie?"

Cam was still pacing like mad. His hair rolled from the front into spikes toward the rear so that he looked like those oddball photographs of Einstein they put on T-shirts. He'd be comical looking if this was a comedy and not a situation where life hung in the balance.

"I know about Marilyn. I know about your friend, Jimmy. I know there's a fucking wacko on my set, they're all fucking wackos, you want my opinion." He gave a flourish of his hands. "Okay, okay, you get outta town." Cam had stopped and was pointing at Karl.

"What?"

"Just get outta town for a while, Karl. This will all blow over if you're not around, trust me on that. You bring in the cops and . . . and . . ."

"Maybe they'd stop this insanity," Karl supplied.

"No! They'd fuck up everything and you know it. I told you that already. I'd be under suspicion, my actors, my crew, everybody. You just leave town. You got a place to go? Listen, I have a cabin stuck way back in the fucking wilds, man, up in Montana. I go up there hunting elk and to get in a little skiing just to get away from this crazy goddamn place. I'll give you the keys, no one knows where it is, you'll be safe."

Karl began to shake his head.

"I'm telling you, Karl, this is what you've got to do. It's my life, this picture. You want to fuck me up, is that what you want? I promise, man, I promise you the minute I get the last shot in the can, you come back and we call in the cops. If they ask why didn't we tell them what we knew earlier, we plead ignorance. How they gonna prove otherwise? This is the only way it'll play. Okay? Let's do it my way. I'll take all responsibility for the decision."

"And if I don't?"

Cam gestured crazily in the air, turning half one way and then the other. He looked like a man about to blow a gasket. His color was high and he was breathing like a fire bellows. "I'm not going to beg you." His voice rose as he repeated it, stepping in close to Karl. "I am not going to fucking beg you. I'll tell you what I will do, though. You don't go off to Montana and let me do my film, you call in the cops now and screw this up, I'll make sure you really are ruined in this town. Now I don't like to threaten people, but you have to understand the wall I'm backed up to. You don't want to get me in that place, Karl. I get bad when I can't move around. So I'm telling you again, you take the keys to my cabin, you leave town, you stay out until I finish the film, and then I'll cooperate. It's up to you."

Karl knew what Cam could do to him. Despite the fact his business was going down the hole from the stalker fooling with his client base and his credit and his tax returns, it was nothing compared to what strings Cam could pull if he put his mind to it. Hollywood wasn't big enough for both of them if Cam went against him.

Karl walked away from Cam and the foyer in which they had been talking. He went into the living room and collapsed on one of the soft leather sofas. He ran a hand over his eyes. The headache was no better. He caught himself grinding down his teeth against the battering pain.

Cam followed and stood over him, a bear of a man, but he wasn't threatening Karl physically. He was, if anything, a dumbfounded bear, lost and crazy to know what cave to hide in.

Karl looked up at him. Saw his face, how seamed it was, how gray. "Okay, Cam. Get me the keys, draw me a map. I'll leave in the morning."

Cam reached out and clapped him hard on the back. It made Karl's brain rattle in his skull. The headache shifted right to the crown and sat there, thumping with his blood.

"Now you're talking," Cam said. He left the room and Karl heard him rummaging in another room. Going through drawers, it sounded like. Looking for keys.

"Montana," Karl said below his breath. "Hell." He leaned forward and put his head into his hands and closed his eyes. Maybe this was for the best. He could get some perspective. He could get out from under the pressure of being followed and nearly killed every few days. He hadn't realized how wearing the past weeks had been. The prospect of just running away, disappearing, was so appealing that it surprised him. He could easily go away at this point, leave town, and never come back.

Except he knew that was a lie. This was where his life was. Anywhere else he would be worthless. Only in Hollywood did he have a place he belonged. So he would come back.

"I found the keys," he heard Cam call from the other room. "We're in high cotton."

Karl drew the ballpoint pen from his shirt pocket. "Ever seen this before?"

"No, why?"

"Take a closer look. Maybe you'll recognize it."

Cam rolled the pen around between his fingers, scrutinizing it.

"Never saw it before. You gonna tell me why you're asking?"

Karl took it back and slipped it into his pocket. "No, it doesn't matter."

"You're leaving? Right away?" Cam handed him the keys to the cabin.

Karl came to his feet. "Yeah, right away."

46

"Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have."

James Baldwin, "Letter from a Region in My Mind,"

New Yorker magazine

It was two days before The Body realized his prey was gone. The new BMW was missing from Karl's driveway. His new temporary office—in a building two streets away from the burned out shell of his old office—stayed closed. His house was empty.

Getting through the scenes on the set was torture. Concentration had flown the coop. Cam gave him hell, Robyn had a heart-to-heart talk with him—again. Olivia grew exasperated in their scenes together and once stalked off the set in a fury, screaming that she "hated working with goddamn pretty boys."

He would never forgive her for that.

His hands shook. He perspired and had to have his face mopped every ten minutes. He blew his lines. He missed his marks. His voice croaked and his movements were stiff. One day Cam threw half a tuna salad sandwich at him.

The Body tried to pry out of Robyn Karl's whereabouts. If anyone knew, wouldn't she? She was surprised he was missing. Her face crumpled like a crushed soda can when she learned he had not been seen in days. Hurt she hadn't been told he was leaving. Or worried something horrible had happened to him? She was no help.

The Body broke into Karl's new office and searched it. There was a new computer, but there weren't any clues in the files. He did find the employee records, all newly and neatly filled out, in a file cabinet. He had Karl's secretary's address and phone number.

On the night of the fourth day of Karl's disappearance, The Body called Lois.

"I need to get in touch with Karl LaRosa. Could you help me out?"

"I'm sorry, you need to call the office next week."

"I can't wait until next week. This is an emergency."

There was a pause. "Who is this and what is the nature of the emergency?"

The Body hung up. He should have known it wouldn't be that easy. Women were all bitches. You couldn't pry anything out of them with a crowbar big as a high-rise.

It was raining, nearly eight PM. If he hurried over to her house he'd catch her still up. She would be coerced into giving up the information whether she wanted to or not.

He threw on a thin jacket to protect his shirt from the rain and ran to the car. She didn't live that far away.

~ * ~

She knew his face the moment she opened the door to him. Rain dripped from his fine blond hair into his eyes. He wiped it away and gave her a boyish grin. "Hi," he said, "nasty night, isn't it?"

"Uh . . . can I help you?"

"Could I come inside out of the rain? I have a message from Karl for you."

She unhooked the safety chain and allowed him entrance. She lived in a small, pastel-pink house set back from the street in a white gravel lawn. Her furnishings were modest, bargain basement stuff, but she wore a beautiful silk dressing gown, oriental, blue with red scaly dragons imprinted over the material.

He followed her to a tiny living area where an ivory nubby linen sofa faced a white, unused fireplace. She offered to get him a towel to dry himself off. He waited, standing on the pale blue and peach Indian throw rug.

He didn't know what he was going to do until she returned with the towel in her hand. He stepped forward as if to retrieve the towel, but instead caught her in an embrace, her arms pinned to her sides. She dropped the towel and gasped.

He looked down into her face. She was not a pretty woman. She was too thin, her chin too pointed, her nose and lips too tiny for her wide, flat face. But her eyes were exceptionally bright, black as a squirrel's, flaring with life. She said, "What are you doing?"

"Where's Karl? Tell me and I won't hurt you."

"Why would you want to hurt me?"

Now she was breathing hard, fear sliding into her eyes like a shaft of light breaking over a dark horizon.

He brought his arms quickly up and his hands circled her throat. He pressed both his thumbs into the cartilage of her windpipe, but not hard. "I don't want to hurt you," he said. "I want to know where Karl went. Tell me."

She tried to shake loose and he pressed his thumbs deeper. She tried to cough. His fingers tightened deeper into her flesh. Her hands were around his wrists, but he ignored them. She was not a big woman, not strong, not even as much of a challenge as Marilyn had been. With more pressure he could choke her. With a quick twist of her neck, he could break it.

"Okay, okay," she whispered. Her voice, cut off the way it was, sounded like a low, harsh wind blowing over a plateau.

Now her eyes watered. They glittered in the light from a lamp on the mantel over the dead fireplace.

He relaxed his hold on her larynx, but did not remove his hands. "Where?"

"He went to a cabin, Cambridge Hill's cabin."

"Where's that?"

"Somewhere in Montana."

"Where in Montana?" He was losing patience and his fingers tightened again.

"I don't know!"

He pressed so hard her eyes began to pop and she fought him, hammering at his upper arms with her fists. He relaxed his grip once more. She took in ragged breaths.

"Where in Montana? I won't ask again."

"Outside of Billings."

He grinned down at her. "You think I'm handsome?"

She blinked.

"Most women think I look like a young Robert Redford."

She tried to nod. She licked her lips.

"I could have played Louis in Interview With a Vampire. Don't you think so?" He bent down and nuzzled her ear. She arched her head away from him and he could feel her body trembling against his chest.

Just as he was pulling away from her neck where he had planted a kiss, he bore down with his thumbs hard and at the same time lifted her off her feet. She kicked and pummeled him. Her eyes were wild with fright, the wall eyes of a horse trapped in a burning stall. Her nails clawed his face and he just laughed.

Laughed and laughed.

~ * ~

Karl took along a laptop computer, his cellular phone, and the gun. He could still hardly believe he was packing a gun. He had bought it early in his troubled time with the stalker; he went into a gun shop and picked it out. He didn't like it at all, in fact treated it the way he might a poisonous snake he kept as a pet, handling it with great care. It made him feel safer, however, and that was the purpose of guns in the hands of law-abiding people.

He found books in Cam's little cabin, dog-eared paperback thrillers in a cardboard box set against the wall in the bedroom. There was no television or radio. There were no neighbors. Down the dirt and gravel road that led to the cabin tucked back into the woods was a small fishing pond and further on a rugged path led into forested hunting ground. The dirt road connected to a two-lane highway that wove into Billings, twenty-six miles distant.

Karl had stocked up on perishables, but overbought on canned goods. Cam's cupboards in the small open kitchen that joined the living area were full of every kind of canned food imaginable. He found tuna and salmon, beans, vegetables, yams, pickles, canned ham—enough to feed one person well into the millennium.

Karl had never taken a vacation. He hadn't left L.A. in years. His work was so demanding and he was so dedicated that he had forgotten the last time he took time off for himself. The cabin reminded him of the reasons he was a workaholic. It was boring to spend time doing nothing.

The first day there he missed being plugged in. The silence was pressing and made him slightly paranoid. Without the sounds of a city—the traffic roar, the ocean down at Malibu, the lights, the crowds—he found that his hearing overcompensated. He jumped at creaks in the wooden plank floor as he walked over it. He flinched when a breeze blew a fir limb against a window. He turned to find the source when the wind sung teakettle songs down the chimney.

Then there were wild animal sounds from the forest surrounding the cabin that he could not identify. Howls and cries, snorts and rumblings that put his nerves right along the razor's edge.

He thought he'd go crazy if he had to stay isolated too long. Cam had promised the script was almost finished. Five, six more scenes, he'd said, and we wrap.

It might take a week, two weeks. Longer than that and Karl thought he'd be climbing the log walls and scratching himself like a monkey. Reading the old paperbacks kept him entertained for a couple of days. He hadn't read a novel in . . . how long? Since college, he guessed. He had forgotten how many hours he could squander, lost in the pages of a novel.

Yet even reading began to lose its attraction after a while. It seemed to him Cam could have varied his reading habits a bit. Hell, where were the Playboy magazines and the copies of Variety? Even a National Geographic would have been appreciated.

It was cold during the nights at the cabin so that Karl had to build a fire in the fireplace for warmth and use two blankets on the bed. He chopped wood, amused at how bad he was at it, once nearly burying the ax in his own foot. He spent almost an hour imagining how he'd drive himself to a doctor from this ends-of-the-earth place if he really did manage to hurt himself.

He stacked the chopped wood neatly in cords on the front porch—panting, aching—and wondered why anyone romanticized the early years of the last century. It must have been a bitch to work this hard every single day.

He cooked, but nothing too complicated, swept the floors, washed his clothes in the tub and hung them from a clothesline he found in back of the house. He might have taken his laundry into Billings to be done for him, but too many Hollywood types took time off to visit in the town; someone would recognize him, word could get back where he was. He didn't want to have to answer questions or explain his presence here. All he wanted was to endure the hours until Cam called to let him know the film was completed.

~ * ~

Middle of the night, dreaming of swimming in the surf at Malibu with Marilyn. Every time he dove into the waves and came up, she waved at him from where she waded in the shallows. He was laughing, happy to know that her death was a lie. "Watch this," he yelled and dove again into a big white-crested breaker. When he came up, flinging his head to clear his hair from his eyes, he couldn't see Marilyn anywhere. He turned in a circle, treading water, but she was gone.

A hand wrapped around his ankle, jerking him into the deep. The water was green as new summer shoots of grass. Seaweed swirled before his eyes, tangled around his head. He tried to bend over to see if Marilyn had his foot and was playing a game. It was not Marilyn. It was a severed arm, latched onto his ankle, dragging him down . . .

He woke soaking with sweat, the covers heaped over his head. He threw back the blankets and that's when he heard someone at the door in the front of the cabin.

He wasn't ready for this. He hadn't expected it.

He fumbled for the nightstand, got the drawer open and his hand on the gun. It was a 9mm Beretta, black, mean, and loaded with hollow-point cartridges. He flipped off the safety and pulled back the slide, chambering a round. The sound was like sheets of tin slapping against Karl's eardrums, loud and frightening.

Now he was sweating in earnest. It was dripping down his forehead and his neck. His palms were damp and he was afraid his finger would twitch on the Beretta's trigger, setting off an explosion.

There was no point in calling out and asking who was there. He knew who it was and why he was here. It didn't matter how the intruder had found out where Karl had gone. At this point all that mattered was living through the next half hour.

All vestiges of the dream world disappeared, wiped from consciousness. Karl's concentration narrowed. All his senses clicked into overdrive. His hearing was acute, his eyes saw everything—the gun in his hand, the sheen of sweat on his forearm, his bare feet moving over the polished wood floor, the doorway he approached, especially the doorway, a maw opening into pitch dark.

He could hear his footsteps crossing the floor, but overriding those secretive sounds was his heart, racketing fast as a jackhammer in his ears.

He put his back to the wall next to the door, the gun held before him and pointing to the ceiling. Suddenly he felt incredibly stupid. He felt like an actor playing a part. He had seen cops do this in a hundred movies and cop television shows. Back to the wall beside the door. Gun gripped with both hands, pointing to the ceiling.

God, if he could just get out of this cabin and to the rental car, he'd go to church, he'd take up religion, he'd get married, Jesus, and settle down and never lie with another woman but Lisa again.

Okay, he told himself. Do what the cops do. Play it straight and maybe you'll live to see morning.

He took a deep breath, swung out into the opening and at the same instant reached through the dark for the wall plate and the switch there. He palmed it up. He expected light to fill his eyes, effectively blinding him for a moment. He even blinked in preparation. But darkness held. The electricity had been disconnected in some way. Hell, hell. Jesus, he thought, you're not listening. I thought we had a bargain. I wish you'd fucking listen when sinners beg for your help.

He had the gun pointed forward, swinging back and forth, hunting a target. His finger on the trigger tightened. It was too dark and there were too many shadows. He forced himself to wait. With the gun still and his breath held, he began to make out the dimensions of the room and the objects in it.

The room stood empty. The front door was closed.

Karl's heart stuttered in relief. And then his gaze was drawn back to the door. It eased open, in eerie slowness. A finger of moonlight crept along the floor like an animal sniffing out a lair.

Karl was in motion without thinking, crossing to the door, skirting the back of the sofa, passing the wing chair. His free hand clasped the doorknob and he jerked the door the rest of the way open.

There was no one there. He stared out into abysmal night. A wayward breeze rushed over him, chilling his bare sweaty chest. He shivered, lowering the gun slightly.

Perhaps he had not locked the door before retiring.

The small voice that was his instinct denied that explanation. He hadn't slept with his doors unlocked in years. He never failed to lock doors, most especially since his troubles had begun. Besides, the electricity was off. His enemy was here, he couldn't pretend otherwise, too dangerous to try fooling himself.

He stepped out onto the porch and when he did, the voice spoke. It was modulated and reasonable. It was male. It caused Karl to swivel toward it and pull the trigger without hesitation.

The resounding of the gunshot made his ears ring. He ducked back inside the semi-safety of the threshold. He might have just killed someone and the thought made his knees weak. He held onto the door facing to keep himself steady.

Just as he was about to step out again to find the dead or wounded body, the voice came again, closer.

"Because of you she killed my babies. They were mine."

The accusation was so fantastical, so nonsensical, that Karl lowered his head to think it over. Killed the babies? A man had babies and someone killed them? Because of him?

Had to wrap his mind around this because if he didn't he was lost in the whirlwind.

Then it came to him. It was like the sudden exposure of a cow's carcass in the middle of a ballroom of costumed people. The understanding swept over Karl with such ferocity that he opened his mouth and an utterance of disbelief passed over his lips.

"Catherine," he whispered.

"Catherine got an abortion after she left me. She left me for you. She killed our children for you. Did you think you could run far enough away to lose me? The ends of the earth aren't far enough."

Oh God, who had Cat been dating before him? Why couldn't he think? He knew about the abortion, he'd accused her of an immoral and selfish act in that regard. But he had not known the father. She wouldn't talk of it and he hadn't pressed her. He had convinced himself it was none of his business. That was her life before him. The pregnancy was her mistake and the abortion her decision. Millions of women aborted their pregnancies every year. Some used abortion as a weird form of birth control. Catherine had been pregnant with twins, but he'd had no business to be involved in that part of her life.

"Who are you?" he asked, now easing the door closed until there was but a crack six inches wide that he could hear through. He would not go out into the dark again and chance being the victim in this face-off. He was no cowboy, he wasn't even familiar with this goddamn gun. The Beretta scared the shit out of him. The first shot he had squeezed off had made his heart lurch. He was glad he hadn't killed the stranger on Cam's porch.

"Answer me," he repeated. "Who are you?"

"I'm The Body."

"The body?" Something in Karl's brain recoiled at the idea anyone would reply that way to a straightforward question of identity.

"The Body that floats on the water, dead. Dead. Dead. The Body that was rejected from the cunt's womb. I am the body of revenge for life ended cruelly."

"You're fucking crazy, man. I had nothing to do with Catherine's decision. You're in the wrong universe. Now leave me alone before one of us gets . . . hurt!"

The door slammed in Karl's face, causing his last word to come out a pained shout. His nose broke, crushing the cartilage to the side of his face, and immediately gushing blood. Lightning shot from the middle of his face into the center of his brain. He saw a sharp new sun, as if a floodlight had been turned on behind his eyes, and he couldn't see. He staggered back, bringing his hand up to his nose while at the same time his gun hand was pulling the trigger of the Beretta again and again and again. The shots were like cannons, booming and filling the room, reverberating off his head in successive violent waves. The gun barrel kept jerking up, to the side, down, and up again. He was crazy with fear and blindness and adrenaline.

He heard the man laughing and he swung to where he heard it and emptied the magazine until he was pulling a dead trigger, clicking it and clicking it like some mechanical toy gangster.

He backed up to the sofa. Blood covered his mouth so that when he breathed in a hot copper-tinged river filled his mouth and was spit out again.

Now there was a silence so loud, punctuated by his own gagging and spitting, that he twitched and turned this way and that, hoping for his vision to adjust.

The voice came from behind him. "It's her fault," the man said, and plunged something sharp, something wide, into Karl's flesh at the back of his waist. In that deadly moment, Karl twisted, throwing himself to the side and away, pulling his weight with one hand along the sofa back and the knife caught him in the muscle and fatty tissue, piercing all the way through to the front of him.

Now he jerked forward and the knife slid out, cutting deeper, and he was moving through the room to the bedroom, grabbing for the door, slamming it at his back and throwing his weight against it while he fumbled in the dark for the lock.

A thump hit the door, the body on the other side pushing as if the door had not yet been shut and now Karl had the lock in place.

Refill the magazine of the Beretta, that's what he had to do and fast, if he wanted to live. He ran into the end of the bed, bounced off, felt along it to the nightstand and reached into the open drawer. He had the cardboard casing off the cartridge box. He slumped onto the side of the bed, unmindful now of the blood flowing freely from his nose and the burning in his side. He worked out the magazine in the Beretta, grabbed a hollow-point from the cartridge box, dropped it. Fuck.

Now there were stealthy sounds coming from the locked door to the bedroom and the man on the other side was talking, but Karl wasn't listening. He heard a name, Michelle, and shut out the rest, picking up another hollow-point and managing to get it into the magazine, then another, and one more before he heard the door opening. Three. He had three chances to save himself.

He could see as well now as if the lights had been glowing overhead. He jammed the magazine into the bottom of the gun, turned, pointed, and pulled the trigger.

Once, twice, three times. The shots were right on, aimed perfectly, the gun held steady as the blasts ignited the room with sound, cordite smoke, and death.

The man was almost to the bed when it happened, almost upon Karl, his right hand raised, the knife descending. The hollow-point cartridges drove through gut and chest and knocked the man back, taking him onto his heels and off his feet and finally onto his back on the floor.

Karl rose from the bed, moaning as if he were the one shot, and went to his knees beside the prone body. He saw the hands were empty. The man had dropped the knife.

~ * ~

He was bleeding profusely, the front of his pullover darkening with blood. Karl knew him. It was Jackie Landry. The lead for Cam's movie. The actor who was playing the part of the victim; he was playing Karl's role.

Jackie turned his head to the side. Karl saw the glitter of his eyes and halted with his hand inches from the wounds. He didn't know what he was about to do, staunch the wounds? Change reality? Wave his hands over the body and heal it miraculously?

He drew back his hand and put it over the cut in his side and squeezed to hold it shut. This was for shit, this was fucking hell and for what? For insanity, he realized, it was a ballet from an asylum.

"I shouldn't be dying for her," the man said.

"She didn't do anything to you," Karl said. "I didn't do anything to you. This was no way to make things right."

The man turned back his head to stare at the ceiling.

Karl put aside the gun and this time he did reach over and place both his hands on the entrance wounds pumping blood from the dying actor.

~ * ~

In so many ways this was not following the script. He might have expected to die, for the villain died in the last reel, villains always died. Hollywood would have it no other way, but it should not have been at this man's hands, not here, not now, not without winning anything he had worked so diligently to win.

He focused on the ceiling and felt his heart bump his ribs and then clench, as if someone had reached inside and took it in a fist.

He called to her for help, pleading in prayerful silence that he not be left alone with this last scene. She came to him as he ended his plea, emerging as smoke from the rafters overhead, drifting down feathery soft and quiet, the way ghosts do. She rested on his torso, leaned over and stroked the tears from his cheeks with both her small hands.

"Come play with me," she said. "I've missed you so much."

He blinked away the tears and in his mind he answered. "I'm coming. I'm coming, Michelle. Help me now."

He strained forward and it surprised him that he came up from the floor so easily, wrapping his arms around his sister, and with her, drifting skyward and away.

47

"Every country gets the circus it deserves. Spain gets bullfights. Italy gets the Catholic Church. America gets Hollywood."

Erica Jong, How To Save Your Own Life

Karl stood with Lisa at the back of the theater. She was his bride and this was the first film they had seen together as a couple.

They had risen during the last scene and slipped to the back to stand with their arms around one another to watch the final moments of the premiere of Pure and Uncut.

It was difficult to watch the movie, but he did it for Robyn and for Catherine and for Olivia, and most of all, for Marilyn. She had been brilliant in it, even though her part had been cut short by her death. He thought she might have won an Oscar for Best Supporting.

It was most difficult of all to watch the screen when Jackie Landry was on. He was twenty feet tall and beautiful and brilliant. He was better than any actor Karl had seen in a drama in ten years. The audience knew, by the time the movie premiered, that Jackie was a murderer. Although Cam wanted to believe his film drew a packed crowd because it broke the mold and would usher in the new technology of movie-making, the truth was more sinister.

They had come to see the killer. The real killer. Jackie's insanity ensured that Cam's movie would break all box office records.

When the music swelled and the end credits rolled, the audience roared with thunderous applause. They began to noisily release themselves from the hydraulic platform seat belts and fill the aisles. Karl turned away and led Lisa out to the lobby. Though the wound in his side was completely healed, he still favored it, leaning a little, feeling the pucker of the stitched flesh.

Cam stood in the lobby with a woman who might have been picked up from a downtown bar. She wore a strapless, black, floor-length gown and too much makeup. It was obvious that Cam adored her.

Karl walked over with his hand extended. Cam took it, grinning to show the spaces between his big teeth. "I heard them," he said. "It's a fucking hit. Didn't I tell you?"

"It was great, Cam."

Cam turned to Lisa and took her hand. "I hear this is your wife."

Karl introduced her, smiling from ear to ear. She thought she might be pregnant and every time he looked at her he thought her radiant as a sunset.

"Karl's one lucky sumbitch," Cam said fondly.

The lobby filled and people crowded around Cam to congratulate him. Karl took the opportunity to take Lisa's hand. They slipped to the door that would lead them outside into the neon world that was the Hollywood night.

Once on the sidewalk, moving away from the waiting limousines and their drivers, Karl said, "I'm glad it all ended happily. It was a good movie, don't you think so?"

She squeezed his hand. "Yes," she said. "It was perfect."

Karl thought it not quite perfect, but he wouldn't argue. Had it been perfect, the script would not have possessed the seeds of destruction that had taken down so many innocent victims.

At least he had his life back and a future to look forward to.

And it would be, no matter how unpredictable and lacking in perfection, at least as normal from now on as he could make it.

"Promise me," he said, "that you'll never get a hankering to return to acting."

"I promise."

"Promise me you'll have at least one more baby for us.”

“I can't promise that."

He laughed.

"Then promise me this."

"What?"

"That you'll always love me." He turned and took her into his arms.

"You know I will."

He thought that she would. Sometimes lives turned out just like fantasies after all, sappy and sentimental as the happy endings portrayed by Hollywood.

"I love this town," he said, kissing her once, and then walking at her side again. "God, don't you love this town?"

THE END

DARK REALITY

by

Billie Sue Mosiman

Copyright Billie Sue Mosiman, 2012

All rights reserved.

THE FIRST TIME I noticed the world was changing was when I was talking to Vernon and turned around to pick up my beer from the table. We were standing in the Alibi Club at the line on the floor, throwing darts, and it was his turn.

The beer bottle wasn't there. I looked around for Millie, the waitress. I saw her at the bar, filling her round tray with drinks. "Hey, Mill, you pick up my beer?"

She hadn't. She came over after serving the other customers and said, haughty-like, "I did not touch your stupid damn beer."

"Just your mouth is going to cost you the tip, whether you took it or not."

She sniffed like a hound and turned away. Millie never did care for me, probably because she'd married my unemployed younger brother, Davey, and never could forgive me for not trying to warn her what a lowdown rat of a nothing he was. Which he wasn't. That's just what she thought of him. Well, he had died in Iraq anyway, and it seemed his death should have softened her up toward me, but I guess it hadn't.

I left her a fiver as a tip, crumpling it in a wad so she'd have to un-wad it to see I wasn't a complete cheap ass, and once Vernon had beat me in the dart game, I said, "I have to go, got work tomorrow." Tomorrow was Saturday, but some of us couldn't get by with a five-day paycheck and had to work Saturday overtime at Herb's Full Service Motor Repair just to have walking around money.

"One more game?"

"I already paid you thirty bucks in lost games, that's my limit, Vernon."

When he frowned his eyebrows came together over his eyes and made him look comical when he meant to look like a bad boy you don't refuse.

I waved good-bye and left, forgetting about the missing beer bottle.

When I got to the house--the house of my dead brother Davey--something else was strange enough to leave me sleepless.

I unlocked the door and stepped inside. It always smelled stuffy and old in the house, probably because I'm not the best housekeeper and the last girlfriend I had was a slob, too, so it never got cleaned properly. Millie had sold the place to me because she said she didn't want the damn thing, it needed painting, it needed some plumbing repair, and the roof was so old and worn there were shingles completely missing to expose the plywood beneath.

I liked the house, though, it reminded me of my brother and remembering him gave me a warm glow. I had done some things to the house. I fixed the roof to stop all the leaks. I put a new coat of paint on the outside. And the plumbing wasn't that hard to cobble together so it worked. But now, walking in the door after midnight, there was something missing. The coat rack that had stood in the hallway where I hung my coats and hats wasn't there. It had been there as far back as when Davey was alive so I guess he hung his things on it too. But now it was gone.

I stood a minute in the dark before turning on the light, thinking. Wondering if I had had too many beers, even if it was a Friday night and I deserved it. Then I switched on the light so quick my hand was still trembling when I brought it back to my side to hang there like a shivering old man's hand, the fingers dancing. The hallway was flooded with pale yellow and I could see for sure the coat rack was gone.

My first thought was, why would anyone want that damn old scrawny wooden coat rack? My second thought was what made me move. I thought: A break-in. What else did they take? I stomped through the house with as much noise as I could make in case the burglar was still there. I went into the kitchen, the dining room, the living room. Nothing seemed out of place or missing. I didn't hear anyone making a break out the back door. They had to be gone. Why hadn't they taken the TV or the antique desk with the roll-top? I ran up the stairs and checked the two bedrooms and all the closets. Nothing wrong there either. Nothing missing that I could tell.

I went down the stairs slowly, and stood at the bottom looking into the lighted hall to where the coat rack used to stand near the wall, just inside the front door. It was gone all right.

The old post office style clock on the hallway wall chimed once for the half-hour to indicate twelve-thirty. I had to get to bed, it didn't matter if the coat rack was gone--for whatever reason--and it didn't matter I couldn't puzzle it out. Oil and tire changes at Herb's didn't take a lot of brain power, but it did take someone who wasn't sleepwalking. I needed sleep.

The next morning I felt groggy and a little hungover. I passed by where the coat rack had stood and wondered briefly why anyone in the world would want to steal it and nothing else. It had been worth maybe two bucks at a garage sale, nothing special about it. But I was in a rush. I didn't have time for puzzles. I got a big travel mug of coffee to take with me, jumped in the truck and drove to Herb's.

The place was hopping. Saturday always was, what with the farmers and ranchers bringing in their trucks and cars for minor repairs, and the townspeople bringing in vehicles they didn't have time to see about during the work week. I stayed busy until noon and my lunch break, so busy I never even got to finish my cup of morning coffee.

When I walked out, lighting a cigarette, to make my way to the pharmacy cafe around the block, I wasn't ready, not at all ready, to come around the corner and discover it was gone. The pharmacy wasn't there. In its place was a steak house called Big Boy Steaks with barn boards above the windows to make it look rustic. I stopped right on the sidewalk, the sun making me squint, and the cigarette fell from my lips.

This wasn't at all right. Then I remembered the beer bottle. It had been there and then not there. The coat rack in my house had been there when I left for the Alibi and, again, wasn't there when I returned.

And now the pharmacy cafe, that was called Partners, and had been in our town since 1904 was replaced with...Big Boy Steaks? Like overnight? No one could have even refinished the front of the building that fast, even if they had worked all night. Because I had eaten lunch at Partners the day before, on Friday. I had driven past it on the way home to take a shower and hurry off to the Alibi to meet Vernon for darts.

I couldn't go forward and I couldn't seem to make any other kind of move. I wasn't hungry anymore. In fact, I felt a little queasy as if I'd already eaten something bad and it wasn't going to stay down. "What the hell?" I whispered, and then looked around to see if anyone was nearby. I stared at Big Boy again. Across the street everything looked the same except for the change of a pharmacy with a cafe that had been around more than a hundred years into a steak house that was festooned with barn lumber.

It took a minute more to realize something else was different and my first assessment had been wrong. The little local radio station in the brick building a block down from what was now Big Boy Steak was no longer KTBR. It had new gold script letters scrawled across the two big dark windows. It said KTAH.

I had to walk over to the courthouse across the street--a little shakily I admit--and sit down on one of the metal benches under the portico. From there I could see Main Street and look as long as I wanted at what was quickly causing an anxiety attack--two businesses that I had driven past, lunched in, and looked at for twenty-nine years that now were not the same two businesses.

I puffed up my cheeks and blew out wind, shaking my head. I reached for the pack of Marlboros in my shirt pocket and had one shaken out when Johnny came out the courthouse door. He paused, said, "Hey, Lane, what's going on?"

Johnny worked as a janitor in the courthouse and often took smoke breaks out front on the benches. We had gone to high school together, but he wasn't the brightest bulb in the bunch of kids produced by the Shannons so janitor was his best shot at a normal life. "Johnny, when did Partners Pharmacy become Big Boy Steaks?"

Johnny looked across the long manicured lawn of the courthouse square to Main Street. He glanced back to me and said, "What do you mean?"

"Johnny, come on now. What's wrong with you? Partners had been there for a hundred years. What happened to it? It was there yesterday. I freaking ate there yesterday. I had their special jalapeno burger and fries. Now it's some steak house. And how did KTBR become..." I stared down Main at the dark windows. "...KTAH? I feel like I'm having an acid dream, but I don't do acid."

"But it's always been Big Boy's and KTAH." He said this with a little awe and a little worry in his voice. It wasn't him that wasn't acting right this time, we both knew that, it was me.

When Johnny said that I knew it was God's truth. At least for him. Because Johnny has no lie reflex. He just doesn't lie, never did, didn't have the ability. If he thought Partners had always been Big Boy, then, at least for him, it had been.

Which meant...I didn't know what it meant. It meant something bad was going on and I didn't like it.

When Johnny went back in to work, I sat a while longer but the more I tried to think through the problem, the more confused I became. Were things really disappearing and sometimes disappearing to be replaced by something similar, but different? What on earth could that mean? Or was I just more hungover than I originally thought? Something was either not right with the world or not right with me and I didn't know which one it was.

Back at work I kept my nose down and my mind blank. I had work to do and if I didn't do it right, I wouldn't get paid. Tonight was payday and I needed the money, no way around it. I deliberately drove down another street toward home so I wouldn't have to look at the two odd businesses on Main.

I worried the problem now I had free time, worried it like a bone, chewing hard, busting my molars on it, and still nothing was coming to me. At home, through the front door, and...

...and where the coat rack had been now stood a tall, skinny wooden cabinet with dull silver knobs.

I froze, holding my breath. I finally got the door closed behind me. I stood looking at the cabinet, a piece of furniture I had never seen before in my life. This was feeling serious. And bad. Worse than bad, like maybe a catastrophe. I brought my hands up and rubbed my cheeks hard. The cabinet still stood there, a silent reminder that it existed just as much as I did, as if to say, Get over it, boy, I'm here, so accept it.

I went slowly to it and took a silver knob in my fist. It turned easily. Inside the cabinet were shelves. On the shelves were things I recognized and some things I didn't. On the top shelf was my baseball cap printed with the legend, WOLVERINES, our high school baseball team. Next to it was my beat up catcher's mitt I hadn't seen in probably ten years and which I thought was in a box of things still packed in the attic. On the second shelf was a small collection of rocks I did not recognize. They weren't mine anymore than the cabinet was. Next to the pile of rocks, was a stack of photographs. I was afraid to touch them, but nothing could stop me from sliding them into my hands and flipping through them like a man in a hurry. Here was a picture of my mother and father when they were first married. Here was a picture of me sitting in a field with my legs around a giant pumpkin my mother had grown for the fair we had every fall. A photo of Davey on his first day of school. Davey and I swinging in the back yard swing set. The rest were like that, old photographs I hadn't seen in years, but that had originally been kept in an old suitcase in the closet of my bedroom. And now they were here, neatly stacked next to somebody's rocks.

I put them back and carefully inspected the third and last shelf. It held a pair of work boots that had seen better days, but they hadn't seen those days with me. I had never owned those boots. Next to them was a .38 caliber Smith and Wesson with a pistol grip.

I stepped back as if the gun were a venomous snake. I didn't own a gun. I hated guns. I had refused as a kid to go hunting with my dad, much to his displeasure, with him saying Davey was a hunter and he was a hunter, what was wrong with me? I didn't join any military service because unlike Davey, who went off and got himself blown up to a thousand million pieces, I wasn't going to have anything to do with guns and killing people. Just wasn't my thing and I can't explain it more than that. I just didn't like the damn things. Guns were destruction. Guns were weapons. I didn't need any weapons.

But there was a gun in a cabinet that didn't belong to me in my house that did belong to me now that Davey was gone.

"Are you here, you bastard?" I yelled it at the top of my lungs and the cabinet door fell shut. I stalked through the house, mad now, madder than I should have been because it was too crazy, too confusing, and I kept yelling in all the rooms, "Are you here? You bastard, do you hear me? Where are you hiding? What the hell is your game?"

I couldn't find anyone. When I finally sat down in a chair at the kitchen table, my head in my hands, I knew it was all connected someway, but I didn't know how. The buildings in town had changed. The beer and the coat rack had disappeared. And now I had a cabinet with a gun and other things in it that shouldn't be there.

#

She came through the front door calling, "Baby, you ready yet? I have got on one powerful thirst."

I still sat where I had collapsed in the kitchen chair, my head now on my arms on the table top. I blinked and lifted my head. What was Millie doing here?

"Millie?"

"Oh, there you are! You've still got on your grease monkey clothes. Why haven't you changed yet?"

"What are you doing here, Millie?"

She gave me a funny smile and leaned over and kissed me full on the lips. What...?

"I live here, or did you forget? Come on now, let's get you in the shower and changed. We're going to meet Davey at the Alibi for drinks before we go to eat. You're always making us late. Hurry!" She pulled me up, and pushed me toward the stairs.

I turned and stood my ground. "Millie, what's going on?"

She saw the confusion in my eyes and let her hands drop from my arms. "What's the matter, baby? Don't you feel well?" She didn't sound very sympathetic, but when had she ever?

"I don't feel well at all and I don't think this is funny. Why are you making a joke of Davey?"

She laughed and I had to admit when Millie wasn't angry, she was a pretty woman. "Davey's a joke all by his-own-self. But he's your brother, so we just won't mention it. And you know he's got that silly temper so he's not going to take kindly to us not showing up for his birthday. Now will you go shower?"

Davey's birthday was in May. This was October with Halloween just days away. The whole town had decorations littering yards with sheet ghosts hanging from tree limbs, carved pumpkins, and GO WOLVERINE signs next to the mail boxes to encourage the game they were playing on the holiday on their home field.

And besides, Davey was dead. We had buried a coffin covered with a US flag, but it was empty. Davey was spun into the wind like particles of sand in a storm.

"Millie, Davey's dead. He's your husband. You know that."

She slapped my face so hard it turned my head on my neck and stung like hell. "Davey's at the Alibi waiting for you to get there! Davey is not dead! Have you lost your goddamn mind?"

And so I had. I stood with my mouth hanging open and my mind jumbled not so much from the slap, but the words--the situation. I had just stepped, surely, into the Twilight Zone, because this was not my world and Millie was not my girlfriend and Davey was dead as yesterday's news.

I went up the stairs to the bathroom and took off my clothes very slowly, my mind in a flurry of contradicting thoughts. I heard Millie outside the door telling me to get a grip and to stop drinking so much and to get my tail in gear because this was ridiculous. I stepped into the tub and drew the curtain. The water was hot and I didn't bother to adjust it. The stream fell like a curtain down over my hanging head with me hoping, praying it would clear it. Please God. Clear this up for me, I thought. Is Millie right, I've lost my mind, my goddamn mind? Or has the world gone out of sync like a ferris wheel with popped gears that sends it tumbling across a fairgrounds?

Could Davey be alive, my God, could he? It might be worth it to have some forgetful events lost in a muddied brain if Davey was still alive.

Then I knew I did have to hurry, just as Millie said. I had to get out of the shower, dry, dress, and get down to the Alibi to see for myself. Because, you see, I loved my brother. I'm not ashamed to admit it. After our parents died, he was all I had. And though he had Millie, his by-god wife (what was she doing here?), they didn't really get along or suit one another and me and Davey were tight as boys and tighter as men. Brothers. We were brothers and we loved one another.

In the truck Millie said, patting down her short black skirt along her thighs, "This might be the last time we get to see Davey for a while. We need to have a good time tonight. You hear me?" She turned and glared at me as I drove. "No more of this nonsense. I told you drinking in the day would lead to this kind of thing. Make you act like you don't know what you're doing. I should have drove, in fact." She kept prattling on, but I tuned her out like dialing down a TV. I never had really liked Millie much, even if she was pretty, and even though she'd married my brother. She'd made him as miserable as she was now making me.

She was also wrong, as usual. I hadn't had a drop to drink. I knew that much. And this wasn't an alcoholic stupor or a hangover or anything else I could put a name to. It was a world gone mad for me, is what it was, but I had to see Davey again if I could...if only I could. I had told him, "Davey, don't join the Marines." I had pleaded, "Davey, think about it some more. You'd make a good mechanic like me, I could teach you." I had cried in my beer the night he left for boot camp and said, "Davey, you're gonna wind up dead over there, you know that, right? Don't go."

Yet he had gone, I know he did. I saw him off on the bus that day. I handed him his ditty bag. I saluted him as a joke and he cuffed me on the head and said, "You worry too much. I may be younger than you, but that doesn't mean you have to worry about me all the time like you're some old mama hen."

Then he was on the bus, swinging up like the big Marine he was going to be, and I never saw him again.

#

He was sitting at a back table with a draft beer in his hand. He saw me come in the door and smiled like the big, goofy fool he was. It was Davey. He was alive! My heart felt like busting open and tears came into my eyes as I walked over to him. He stood and hugged me and I couldn't let go. I couldn't let this moment go because what if it was a dream and I might wake up and he wouldn't be in my arms, alive and warm and real?

Millie slapped me on the shoulder and said to Davey, "Don't mind him, he's been, well, you know, tipping the bottle back a little too far lately."

I let him go then and wiped my eyes. "Davey."

"Lane. You're late for my birthday bash, as usual. I'd have never forgiven you if you'd missed it. I have to leave tomorrow, remember? This is my last hometown hurrah. Let's get drunk, buddy." My heart lurched in my chest. He couldn't be talking about leaving for boot camp. Could he? He laughed the way he did when my sentimentality embarrassed him and gestured for the waitress--who was some girl I didn't know and not Millie--to come take an order.

"Where you going?" I asked it in as normal a voice as I could manage, which sounded to me like a high whine of a bad engine.

"Going? You know where I'm going, it's all your damn idea, big brother! I am going in the Marines and I'm going to be the baddest badass Marine they've ever seen."

My idea? No, this wasn't happening. None of this was right, the world and reality had sidestepped and twirled everything around and upside down and this could not be happening.

In the real world, the one that began to change the night before with my missing beer in the Alibi, my brother was dead and buried for eight months and I had begged him, really begged him to not sign up.

In this world I evidently was hooked up, if not married, to his bitch of a wife Millie, Davey was alive--for now--and I had talked him into going into the military.

Wrong. So wrong that it made my head hurt. It made the room spin. Millie grabbed my arm and whispered in my ear, "You snap out of it. Don't go ruining Davey's birthday. A man doesn't turn twenty-one every day."

But Davey wasn't just twenty-one; he'd been twenty-three and unemployable because he had no trade and few skills or education. That's why he felt joining the Marines was his only choice. And his birthday was in May, not October. Was this even the real Davey? Was this even the world? Was I asleep?

I slapped my own face and Millie saw it. She ground her teeth and shook her head at me. Davey had his back turned, talking to the barmaid I didn't recognize. I couldn't wake up. But just in case this wasn't a dream, just in case I was experiencing some kind of slip in time where relationships were different, where people were the wrong age, where coat racks and beers disappeared and cabinets appeared--and where dead men walk--I had to do something to stop my brother from leaving the next day.

Keeping my mind as calm as I could, I toasted Davey, hugged Millie to my side, and we all went to Big Boy Steaks--that impossible restaurant I had never entered before--and had dinner. When the cake was brought out, I smiled as my brother blew out the candles, but my insides were churning. I had to figure things out quick. I couldn't keep panicking because my reality had turned into a funhouse hall of mirrors. The important thing was to prevent Davey from ever boarding the bus tomorrow for boot camp. If I could get nothing else right, I'd have to find a way to get this one thing right. His life depended on it. The life he'd lost once already.

I made him stay that night at my house, insisted until he relented. It had been his house, but he didn't remember it that way, and Millie, who was undressing in the upstairs bedroom had been his wife, but he didn't know that either. And neither of them knew Iraq was going to be the place Davey died. I was all he had. I was the only one who could stop it this time.

Hauling out some beers, we sat in the living room with the TV off. Millie had waved sleepily at us and trundled off to bed wearing a long gown and yellow bunny slippers. Davey said, "You know if I'd been a couple of years older, I'd have stolen Millie from you before you could do squa-deuce."

I bit the inside of my lip and said nothing. Finally I cleared my throat and said, "I was wrong, I don't think you should go."

"To boot? I have to, are you nuts? I already signed up."

"Tell them...tell them you have a bad back or...that you have to go pee every five minutes...or..."

He laughed, his hair fell over his eyes and I loved him more than I ever had before because I had him back, back from the dead, and I wasn't letting him go there again. If this was a reprieve, I was taking it for both of us.

"You can't fake out the Marines, man. What happened to your gung-ho? I thought you said it would be good for me, that there was nothing for me here, that if I joined up, I would end up with some veteran's benefits and maybe a job skill..."

"I was wrong, all right!"

He sat back on the sofa, the beer in his hands. "What's going on with you, Lane? I'm having a hard time tonight understanding you."

I looked down and saw I was wringing my hands. Hands that were calloused and hard from laborious work. "Davey, you can't go. I won't let you."

"Why? What's changed in you?"

"It's not me that's changed. It's...well, I have a bad feeling. They'll send you to the war. If they end in the war in Iraq, they'll send you to Afghanistan. It's too dangerous. A lot of boys have died. I don't want to lose you, Davey." I almost added again.

"Nothing's gonna happen to me. You're always worrying."

I heard a clatter of footsteps on the stairs. Davey and I turned to see Millie burst into the living room, hair disheveled, eyes wild. "Someone's out back creeping around!"

"What?" A greater feeling of disorientation came over me.

Davey leaped to his feet. "What?"

"I heard something and looked out the upstairs bedroom window. There's someone out there, in the back yard."

"I'll take care of it." Davey set down his bottle of beer and walked directly to the cabinet in the hall. He opened it and leaning down came up with the .38.

Now I was on my feet and trying to cross the distance between us. "Davey, no. Let me call the police."

"No way, big brother. I'm a Marine now." He was down the hall leading to the back door before I could reach him.

"Get out of my way!" I pushed Millie aside and hurried after Davey. Now I understood two things. The gun, which I loathed, was not mine. It was Davey's and being stored here. And whoever or whatever was prowling in the dark in the back yard was Davey's killer. Because Davey didn't really belong anymore, not in any reality. If I couldn't stop him from going out the back door, Davey wasn't coming back.

I slipped near the stairs on one of Millie's slippers. She must have lost them on her rush down the stairs. My left foot went out from under me on the slick wooden floor and I tried to grab for the stair bannister, but I missed. I came down hard on my ass with a yell. I screamed for Davey, who was moving purposefully toward the back of the house and beyond my reach. "Davey!"

Millie tried to help me up. I rushed away through the shadowy hallway, breathing heavy, my heart not just pounding, but throbbing like an iron fist opening and closing in my chest. This wasn't fair. This was not fair. If I had in some way slipped over into an alternate reality where things were changed and I had a chance to keep my brother safe, then these precious minutes were a joke on me. Because I felt it, the reality behind the reality. The truth of it. If a person has died, and you enter some strange other world or reality where they are alive, they're not going to stay alive.

That kind of thing is bigger than a missing beer or a shabby coat rack.

Larger than a strange pile of rocks that some boy must have gathered, photographs in a place they weren't before or a gun that had never existed.

And it was stronger and more important than a wife switching brothers or a different birthday or a change in attitude about military service.

Death, in any reality, was final.

I reached the back door, flung it wide, and stumbled down the three cement steps to the dark back yard. "Davey?" I thought I was choking, I couldn't breathe, I had to find him and stop...

There was a gun shot and it was so loud and sudden it shook me from my feet to my jawbone. I ran straight into the darkness not caring what happened to me, it didn't matter about me, it was about changing things even if I thought I probably couldn't. It was about making a change that mattered to me so much that it meant I was willing to do anything to make it.

I fell over something, let out a scream, and felt with my hands in the dark only to find what I prayed I wouldn't. I felt a man's form, my hands sliding up ribs to shoulders and the dark retreated as a beam of bright white light from a flashlight shone down on Davey's still face.

Millie stood over him with the light, a gasp escaping her. She fell to her knees. I saw the blood on his shirt, the hole, the gun powder burns. I saw his eyes rolling back and I yelled, "Davey, stay! Don't die, Davey, please!"

In some far distance I heard the crackling sounds of rustling bushes as the anonymous killer (or had it been the Grim Reaper, the Wild Thing that Feed on Souls, the Destroyer?) fled the yard, lost in the darkness.

Millie was weeping. I was crying openly.

Davey shut his eyes and he died.

#

Today, two months since we buried Davey for the second time, I woke to find Millie missing from bed. I looked in the closet and her clothes were gone. I don't care. In fact, I'm relieved. If reality is slipping again, I hope she's not in it.

I got dressed for work feeling hungover. I have been imbibing too much. It's beginning to tell on me. That is the least of my worries.

Downstairs I look in the hall at the cabinet and it's not there. I sigh and sit down wearily on the bottom stair step. In place of the cabinet is an old chest, rectangular, with brass hinges. I don't want to look in it.

Instead, I make coffee, fill my travel mug and go outside to start the truck. It's almost Christmas and there's snow on the ground.

In the driveway is a maroon Chevy Suburban. I feel in my pants pocket and withdraw a key with an electronic lock-unlock beeper on the chain with it.

That's okay, I tell myself, thank you, world. The truck was old. I was hoping to get to trade it in anyway. The Suburban is a luxury boat and I enjoy it as I drive to work. When I enter the garage, Barney, the tire man, says to me, "Hey, Lane, the boss is always late, eh? We got it covered, though, you betcha. No ass wipe is slacking around here."

I stand still trying to think. Trying to make it all straight and logical, trying to make sense of it happening again. I am not a mechanic. I am the boss of the place. I either own it or I manage it. Will these changes go on forever? Am I the only one slipping between realities or does Barney do it, does Millie do it, do we all do it?

At lunch I eat at Big Boy Steaks. The burgers aren't half as good as Partners served, and they cost twice as much. After lunch, in my office filling out unfamiliar work forms, Millie comes by and says, "What are you going to do about being late with the child support?"

I look at her bug-eyed. "Well?" She has her hands on her hips. I don't know why I ever thought she was pretty.

"I'll...I'll handle it." Saying anything else is going to prolong this argument and disorient me to the point I'll just start gibbering and drooling.

"You better handle it, or your ass is mine, Mister. Do you think Davey and me can live on air?"

"Davey?" I felt a pain in my chest. I might be having a heart attack. Or the anxiety is so great it's going to give me one.

"Your son? You never paid him a minute's attention when we were married, what do I expect, right? Get that check to me by 5pm. Or you'll be sorry." Her high heels were expensive and her hair was long, shiny, and expertly cut. She gave me one last hard stare and left the office.

I put my head down on the desk and wondered what I was going to do. Davey, my brother--who I had failed to rescue from death's clutches twice--was now Davey, my son. And I knew beyond any doubt it was going to be the same person, but younger. Maybe the Davey I played ball with, the Davey whose hair always fell over his eyes, the boy younger than me who I had to keep an eye on so he wouldn't get hurt, or fail his math test, or...go off to war.

Before I saw him I had to find out what was in the chest in the hallway at home.

Maybe there was something in it this time that would save a life instead of take it. But if I had to bet on it...I guess I wouldn't give it good odds. Because whatever is happening, either to the whole world or just to me, doesn't seem to relinquish the dead to the living for very long.

It only gives out a miserly loan that has to be paid in full, with interest. I don't know that for sure. I don't know anything from one day to the next for sure. But all evidence points to the fact that these new mixed up, jumbled lives I am living are just like the one that I started out with--in one particular--I never get to keep Davey for long.

THE END

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Thank you for reading. Please read on for the beginning chapters of my latest novel, BANISHED.

BANISHED

By

Billie Sue Mosiman

Copyright Billie Sue Mosiman, 2011, All rights reserved.

"The Magician rearranges the Universe to make himself the center, the Mystic rearranges himself to find the center."

THE LITTLE DEATH

She could barely breathe she was so hot. She could hear the night birds call and the rustle of her mother’s palm grass skirt as she moved about the small hut. She could see just the light from the flames of the fire in the center of the floor, but she could not make out anything beyond.

She closed her eyes to blessed darkness and wondered when she would die. She knew she would never be well again, never stand and walk, never kiss her mother’s cheek, or feel the comfort of her mother’s loving embrace. She had not lived long, a handful of years, so there was not much to miss. Yet she knew she must fight against death. She must not let it take her willingly.

A blanket of coolness slipped over her bare skin and it was not from the water her mother had been sponging onto her. She tried to reopen her eyes to discover the cause, but her lids were too heavy. She was so hot! The coolness that temporarily enveloped her was not helping. She wished they would carry her to the sea and float her in the waves.

Dark grew darker. Grew to pitch black. Grew to a void. She struggled to take a breath. It would not come; her lungs would not obey. She thought, Death has me. Death has slipped his arms around me and holds me so tightly I cannot breathe.

Faintly she heard her mother’s wails, but she couldn’t lift a hand for her to come near, nor could she whisper the compassion she felt for the loved one she was leaving behind. She couldn’t even say goodbye.

Take me to the sea, she begged of Death. Take me from this heat and pain and let me float in the cool frothy waves. I always loved…I always loved the sea.

The heat grew like a malevolent cloud in the darkness until it filled the void. She couldn’t feel her body. She knew she was but a pinpoint of matter, a tiny bit of consciousness floating in the emptiness. It seemed time had stopped or it was moving so slowly it would last forever and nothing for her would ever change.

I’m not ready, the child complained. I’m too young.

And then she was swept off into the dark beyond where there was no more thought or heat or life.

She was done with this world.

A NEW TRUE BEGINNING

“Life. A wriggling mass of cells blindly replicating, always in motion, endlessly in search of food. Is that life? They say it is.”

The girl lay dying. Her week-long fever had put her into a coma and though her mother kept bathing her with cool water, her skin felt like hot coals. Though fevered, her light coffee-colored skin shone smooth and beautiful as a river stone in the flickering firelight.

In the little one-room shack made from date palm leaves the heat was stifling. Not one stray breeze made its way through the open doorway. Flies were so thick they congealed the air and had to be batted away constantly from the comatose child.

The mother, frantic about losing her only child, knowing in her heart death stood close with a skeletal arm extended, ran from the hut crying to the night heaven. She sped along the lone path through the jungle to the witch doctor’s hovel and stood outside wailing loud enough to wake the dead.

In her native tongue she told the witch doctor about the dying child and begged for him to save her.

It seemed to take him forever to gather his special feathers, shells, rocks, and sticks tied in bundles with strings of dried pig skin. As the mother raced back along the path to her baby, the witch doctor stayed at her side, pacing her, a pale sickle moon at their backs.

Bursting into the hut where a small fire in the center of the floor burned, grotesque shadows swathed the little girl who lay against the back wall. Both mother and witch doctor knew it was over and done with.

The child’s arm lay limp off to one side, her head was turned toward them, her eyes open, glazed, and forever stilled.

The mother turned to the witch doctor and in her grief made the ultimate request. She knew of the rumors.

“They say you have raised the dead. Raise her up!”

“I have only raised a few animals,” he said. “Never a human being.”

“Raise her!”

It was true he was renowned across the island as the most powerful witch doctor ever to have lived, but what the woman was asking he thought was surely beyond his powers. He had brought a dead chicken back to life. A dead dog. And once, even a dead panther, just to see if he could. But a human being? He had not dared try. He was not even sure that the gods would allow him that kind of power.

“I will give you anything,” the mother cried. She beat her chest and rolled her eyes. “Anything! Anything!” She was close to madness.

The witch doctor’s countenance darkened, his eyes took on a glow. His gaze left the mother and settled on the child. He stepped closer, two steps. Three. He went to his haunches and studied the girl. She was undeniably the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Her skin was lighter than most islanders, as if it were lit from within by soft white flame. Her nose and lips and eyes and brow were perfection, and the face was shaped like a heart. Her long dark hair was smooth, shiny with whale oil, and it fell in curls like coiled snakes from her scalp. He reached out and trailed his fingers along her cheek. It was cold, so cold. It was a shame she was dead. It seemed to Mujai that the gods were intentionally cruel when children died.

Suddenly, and without knowing how it happened, the witch doctor fell in love with the dead child. If he hadn’t known better, he might have suspected he was under a spell not of his own making. His face softened, his lips parted, and he let out a little sigh. He swiveled on his haunches to face the mother at the hut’s door opening.

She was silhouetted in the firelight, a gaunt figure with clenched hands held before her breasts. He could feel her grief as if it were an extra person in the hut. It loomed over her, a dark, heavy figure bearing down on her thin shoulders.

“You will give anything if I raise her up? Anything? You will even give up your child to me?” He must make sure she meant it.

A look of dawning understanding and then dismay filled the mother’s eyes. She hung her head. Her tears kept falling, drenching her sweaty naked breasts. She had to decide. Bury her child or see her rise up and walk again, alive and well, but belonging to someone else. Belonging to…

“Yes,” she said, jutting out her chin in defiance. “Yes, I told you, yes. Anything. If you must take her, then take her, as long as she is alive again.”

The witch doctor stood and came to the child’s mother. “When I raise her, she will be mine. You understand? Forever mine. I will take her from here and she will live with me. One day, when she is old enough to wed, she will be my bride. Tell me you understand.”

Since the mother made no protest beyond the horror of what she was doing to her only child reflecting from her eyes, the pact was sealed.

“If you break your promise, I will kill you,” he said.

She turned aside, unable to look him in the face.

He left through the low door and stood a moment staring up at the starry sky from whence he derived part of his power. The sky, the earth, the sea, they all gave him just a particle of their powers, but it was enough. Enough to raise a human being he did not know yet, but enough to hope to raise one.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can. Keep away the family, let no one see her, allow no ceremony for her spirit. Tell no one, ever, of what happens here, good or bad, you understand? And while I am gone keep the flies away too,” he added. “She must be kept clean and free of vermin.”

He hurried off into the night, loping like a gazelle. His talismans were left behind, discarded on the floor near the dead girl. For this he would not need them, and in fact, they would play no part. He required special plants that grew deep in the interior of the jungle, and water from the sea, and earth from the foot of the great sacred rock where all former witch doctors had been buried. Three times he had raised the dead with the secret potion, but if he was successful this fourth time it would be such a great accomplishment he might think himself a king rather than a witch doctor.

And the little girl would be his queen.

#

The island the witch doctor searched in the dark for his magic ingredients had no name for the people. Later in history it would be called Hispaniola. It was home to a few hundred aborigines who did not remember how any of them had come to be on the island and none of whom had ever tried to leave it. The land was merely home, the place where they lived out their lives. Centuries later the island would be conquered and ruled by the Spanish, who changed the name to Santo Domingo. In 1697 a formal division of the island occurred changing the name again into Santo Domingo and Saint-Domingue. Finally, it was changed to Haiti, what an ancient people used to call it. From that period the island was ruled over by despots and dictators.

But in this time before time was kept, it was nothing more than a jungle-encrusted plot of land in the Atlantic, neglected and ignored, its people savage and superstitious and alone, so very alone.

There were other witch doctors, and other small tribes, on various parts of the island, but Mujai knew he was the greatest of all. He had learned well everything his father and his grandfather had taught him about the witch arts, until he surpassed them and discovered, really by chance, the potion that brought the dead back to life again.

His reputation had spread and, after it was known he raised up a panther, some even feared him so much they let themselves die of fevers and infections rather than call for him. Others, however, knowing his value, came to his door and kept him rich with food and weapons for his prized wisdom. Perhaps, he thought, they were afraid, too, so they left him bribes. They gave him feathers of the rare ni-ni bird that had tail feathers of royal purple and emerald green. They brought beautiful shells taken by skilled divers from the sea floor, shells radiant with rainbow colors. And every fruit and every fish and every varmint that walked the island had at one time or another been deposited before his door as a gift.

He had never really wanted for anything or worked to feed himself. Yet there was one gift he had never been granted. Mujai had never had a woman. He was too feared. He was not good marriage material, never even considered as a mate for a father’s daughters. A man who could raise the dead was a fearful being indeed. He expected to live a solitary existence and die old and alone. Until tonight, with the little sleeping-dead girl who he knew, some way, some how, he would be able to raise up. She held a promise of the one thing he wanted and missed the most.

It was true the chicken did not cluck after it was raised. And the dog did not bark. But the panther, yes, it had been almost as before, roaring, leaping, hunting prey. But it had seemed to Mujai, following the dead-before-now-alive panther’s trail for several weeks out of curiosity, it had seemed the big cat had turned into quite a voracious beast. Keeping well-hidden and down wind, Mujai watched it many times take it’s prey apart nearly on the very moment of impact, at the instant of its death from the panther’s vicious long teeth. Flesh went flying skyward, to the right and to the left, and still the beast attacked, ripping and tearing in such a frenzy that its entire face and chest was slathered with blood from its victim. It did not feed so much as battle and destroy.

Mujai loped harder and tapped on his chest for protection, thinking of the beast he had raised and how dark the night still was, dawn some hours yet in the distance. Where was that hungry beast now? And was it on the prowl anywhere near by for the fearful master who had raised it from the dead?

And what of the child, he wondered, suddenly, his lope faltering. Mujai was not a stupid man, and could follow a line of logic as neatly as anyone. What if when raised the little girl was changed? Was vicious? Was rapacious? What if she became a beast who could not be satisfied?

Again Majai tapped his chest for protection, for good luck, for help from the gods, for the heavens to favor him, as they had done all his life. He possessed but this one chance and he would take it, no matter what the outcome.

He took up his running lope again, for he had to hurry. Many of the plants he needed for the potion were scattered far and wide. He had much work to do, much territory to cover. And already the child was cold, so cold.

The breeze from the ocean wafted across his face, filling his nostrils until he could taste the brine on his tongue. He could smell the fecund earth and his nostrils filled with the scent of various night-blooming flowers whose perfume was so strong it could dull a weaker man. He concentrated so the spirit gods would lead him to the plants he needed. Once calm, it came again on the wind, the scent of the deep, mysterious sea. He breathed in deeply and smiled. This is my island, he boasted to himself. I am king here. I am a god here. No one can do what I have done and what I am about to do. I am afraid of nothing, nothing. If I fail, no one will know. If I succeed…

He went into a trot and then into a true all-out run. He had to hurry, hurry, hurry.

He had a child bride to save. He had a beautiful, innocent, perfectly proportioned queen to raise up from the dead and to make his very own. She could not remain dead too long or even the potion would not work.

Yet if it worked! He would be alone no more. He swore it. Like his grandfather and father before him, he had found a woman he could take and make his own. That she was so young did not matter. He could teach her everything and be patient until she was a few years older. He would spend those years tutoring her how to work for him, bathe him, fetch and cook and climb the trees for his honey. He would teach her how to behave. How to love him as her king, as her Giver of Life. She would, after all, owe him everything, forever. She would be his Child-Lover-Mother-Companion-Inspiration, his alone, forever.

COMING ALIVE

The instant the potion was massaged down her throat so that it slid into her belly, the magic began to work.

The potion mixed with the contents of her stomach, permeated the cells of the stomach wall, drifted into the silent blood stream. Like a horde of marauding ants, the potion properties invaded the cells. Those cells twinkled to life and began to move, invading the cells next to them. Within an hour all the cells of the child’s body had been changed, replaced, even down into the marrow of her bones. Human cells still, yes, but the DNA had been tweaked into something beyond human and life now was not like any life existing on the planet earth.

After waiting the proper amount of time, Mujai said a wild prayer beneath his breath and began to pound on the child’s chest. He must get the heart moving again. This is what he had done with the animals. With each mild thump he whispered wilder and more desperate prayers to the gods, asking for this miracle, this one if no other ever again.

He had vanquished the mother from the hut and forbade her from speaking of this death and this ritual to anyone. He promised to take her life if she did. This was one raising he did not want to broadcast. In fact, if this raising worked, he had promised himself he would never do it again. Somewhere in the center of him where his man spirit resided, he felt what he was doing was against all nature. Already he had broken the very rules of the world by raising animals, but to raise a human being was…well, it was a bad business. He knew that, sensed it, even though he could not stop from trying to do it.

With each thump on the girl’s dead chest, he prayed harder. Do this for me, he prayed. I want her. I need her. She is mine. Sweat dripped from his face. Outside the moon had slid around the edge of the world and soon the sun would peak from over the lip of the blue sea. He could not be found here in the day, performing this ritual on the child. If others discovered he could raise a human being, they would bring every death on the island to him. Corpses would rise higher than the roof of his hut and drown the sky.

If they knew of it and he failed, they would dismiss him as a charlatan. He’d be thought of as someone who had cruelly made a grieving mother believe in the impossible. Rather than a king, he would become a pariah. His people knew no forgiveness. When you did a horribly wrong thing, you were cast out.

He pounded. He prayed. He feared defeat. And then life happened like a spark taking hold on massed palm tree shavings.

Her eyes opened.

Mujai sank back onto his heels in true astonishment, his hands frozen over her still body. He had not really, in the heart of him, believed that this could happen. He wanted success and now that he had it, he was mortified.

“Speak to me,” he whispered in sudden fear. “If you can hear me, speak.” Would she be mute like the chicken, the dog?

“My master,” she said. “I have come back for you.”

Mujai nearly passed out. He could not move even an eyelid. His mouth gaped.

She slowly sat up, woodenly, like a doll made of sticks. The black irises of her eyes were so enlarged they nearly covered the original mud brown color of her eyes.

“I saw Death,” she said. “I was lost in the dark.”

“Yes.” He gasped the word, the air in his lungs so short he was on the verge of fainting. “You were dead. I brought you back. You…you will live with me now.”

The girl pulled her legs beneath her woven palm skirt and she leaned forward on her hands so that her perfect little face was mere inches from his.

“Of course I will,” she said in a breathy voice that sounded nothing like a child’s voice. “I will come live with you.”

It felt like a threat to Mujai. At the very moment he knew he should feel exultant and powerful, he was overwhelmed with the greatest fear he had ever experienced.

What could he do? He had brought the dead to life and now he owned her. He had bargained for her life and she belonged to him, whether he feared her or not.

He rose shakily to his feet and held out his hand. “Come with me, then,” he said. “We will go.”

Her hand was shockingly cold. He forced himself not to cringe from her touch. He wondered if she would ever feel warm, feel human again.

Outside the hut the girl’s mother fell to her knees, mewling like a newborn. Tears ran down her face. “My baby, my baby, my baby lives,” she cried.

“Goodbye, Mother,” the girl said formally and without emotion. Then she moved forward, pulling the witch doctor behind her.

It seemed she knew the way home.

###

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Please visit Billie Sue Mosiman’s Kindle store for this Edgar and Stoker Nominated author’s other novels and short story collections.

Table of Contents

- Bad Trip South
- Lament for Long Tom
- THE thunder of gunfire
- Unidentified

- Question by interviewer on America Online bulletin board service

- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- DARK REALITY
- BANISHED
- &quot;The Magician rearranges
- COMING ALIVE