by Ian Bull
“Thank you,” I say.
“But first, we whore,” Peter says. “And you will work by my side every moment, chained to me. Understand?”
“I understand.”
Peter and Socha smile at each other. Socha holds my face, and Peter lays his scalpel against my forehead and cuts my skin. It stings, and my head bangs back against the cushion as blood runs into my eyes. I hope Julia likes turtles.
Chapter 39
* * *
Julia Travers
Day 12: Wednesday Night
Malibu, California
Trishelle and Glenn went to the Trancas Market and got as much steak, chicken, and salad fixings as they could. I’ve been chopping up carrots and tomatoes and cleaning lettuce heads, while she’s been turning Tex-Mex skirt steaks and chicken breasts on the gas grill on the balcony.
Glenn is freaking out, convinced that spies can see every piece of meat Trishelle is turning and record every whisper in the living room. So, I’m letting him play his funk music, but there’s so much muttering, it’s impossible to figure out what we’re saying.
Mendoza, Taylor, Webb, and Glenn talk into their cellphones as they pace from the living room to the entranceway and back again. They remind me of studio executives visiting a movie set. Anthony helps me swap out an empty food platter for a new one overflowing with grilled meat, corn tortillas, cheese, and hot sauce, and I bring in another huge bowl of salad, but no one stops to eat. That means we’ve reached an impasse.
Mendoza shakes his head as he hangs up his cellphone. “No one has seen Robert Snow in ten days, since he was fired. Not his parents, not his friends, nothing.”
“Hello? That’s because he’s working on this show,” I say.
“Or he left the country for another nudist vacation,” Mendoza says.
Taylor hangs up his phone. “I have field offices in Central America and in Hong Kong looking into the prisons, and they’ve found no evidence of any plot to release prisoners.”
Carl grabs Glenn’s elbow. “What about the GPS on Steven?”
Glenn stares at his souped-up cellphone and shakes his head. “I was tracking him all the way up to Phoenix. But now the GPS is telling me he’s back in Palm Springs.”
My cellphone rings on the coffee table and everyone rushes to see who’s calling. It’s Le Clerq’s number. I push everyone away and answer.
“I’ll call you back from another line,” I say, and ten seconds later, Glenn hands me his ringing phone, with a phone jack and a splitter to four pairs of ear buds so the others can hear, too. Le Clerq answers.
“There’s a GPS on Steven’s jacket,” I say. “We’re picking up that he’s in Palm Springs.”
Le Clerq laughs. “In fact, I am in Palm Springs, and so is Steven’s jacket—along with his clothes, wallet, cellphone, and computer. But Steven’s not. Peter Heyman made him strip naked and drove into the desert in a Humvee, and I haven’t seen him since.”
“You let them drive him away? Naked?” I ask.
“The guy was goddamned scary. I drove halfway home before feeling safe enough to pull over and call you. Now, I want my twenty thousand dollars.”
“That wasn’t the deal.”
“Yes, it is. I got Quintana hired on the show and I dropped him off and he climbed in the car—naked—without saying a word. I got him what he wanted.”
“Ask him where he got dropped off,” Glenn whispers.
“Where did you drop him off?” I ask.
“Buckeye, Arizona, at the end of the South Estrella Parkway, where it dead ends and the desert begins.”
Glenn nods, checking the GPS history on his cellphone.
“Bring Steven’s things to your lawyer’s office. You’ll get your money.” I hang up and hand Glenn his phone. “Where is the Estrella Parkway in Rainbow Valley?”
“It’s on the edge of the Sierra Estrella wilderness, which butts up against the Gila River Indian Reservation,” Glenn says, reading off his phone.
“Let’s go. We can start our search there.” I say, looking around the room.
Mendoza shakes his head. “I grew up in Arizona. The Gila River Indian Community is five hundred square miles, and the Sierra Estrella wilderness is another two hundred. That’s a lot of desert and mountains to get lost in.”
“I’ll call the FBI field office in Phoenix,” Taylor says, and dials his phone.
“I’ll call the Gila River tribe,” Mendoza says, also dialing.
“Which is faster, flying or driving?” Carl asks to everyone.
Glenn attacks his cellphone, looking up times and prices. “Driving is nine hours. Earliest flight from LAX is five hours from now, so it’s about the same.”
“Let’s rent a minivan and get the hell on the road,” Carl says. “Our boy needs us.”
Taylor and Mendoza both hang up their phones, but don’t respond. Instead, Taylor sits down on the couch, flips his tie over his shoulder, and loads a corn tortilla with skirt steak, cheese, and tomatoes, then wolfs it down with a long sip of lemonade. Mendoza sits next to him and starts making his own.
“I found a great price on a Dodge Grand Caravan in Santa Monica,” Glenn says.
Taylor and Mendoza don’t look up from their tacos. I bring in a bottle of Cholula hot sauce and put it on the table, and Mendoza sweeps it up and douses his food without looking up at me. Carl and I trade glances.
“You guys coming or not?” Carl asks.
Taylor shakes his head. “We have to coordinate with Washington and the field office in Tucson. The earliest we can go is tomorrow morning.”
“And I’m waiting for an approval for a trip out of State,” Mendoza says.
Anthony’s phone dings with a text. “This is from Walter Louie in San Francisco. His cousin in Hong Kong just called him. Ming will be released from Stanley Prison tomorrow night and put on a yacht. This show will happen within two days of that.”
“Kind of hard to deny it now, huh boys?” Carl asks.
Taylor and Mendoza glance at each other, but keep eating.
“Then I’ll go ahead and meet you there. Who’s coming with me?” Carl asks.
Taylor wipes his mouth and stands up. “You’re not going anywhere. This is our investigation, now. If you behave, I might let you come along. But this is our trip, on our timetable.”
Mendoza takes a huge bite of food and talks with his mouth full. “Saturday is three days away, and there’s plenty of work we can do here in Los Angeles. We’ll fly out tomorrow and rent a van.”
Carl throws up his hands, then sits and starts loading his own tortilla. “If I can’t get you fuckers to move, I might as well eat, too, then.”
I throw paper napkins on the coffee table and walk into the kitchen. Trishelle stands by the refrigerator, chewing her nails. “I can’t go. It’s too much for me,” she says.
“It’s okay. You’ll be here when we get back.”
I hug her long and hard.
Chapter 40
* * *
Robert Snow
Day 13: Thursday Morning
Ryan Airfield, Tucson Arizona
My blue and green DC-9 looks gorgeous in the desert morning light. I park the black Explorer under her left wing, and Jim the production assistant waves hello as I get out. He’s arranging all the gear on folding tables in the shade of the opposite wing, ready to run stuff inside to the tech crew prepping for this afternoon’s test flight.
It’s quiet. Hachiro and his punks are scouring South Tucson’s industrial zone, buying all the materials they will need for the build-out in Mexico. Kat and Sydney are in the office, going over the list of weapons that Boss Man’s connections are buying in Hermosillo, and arranging the delivery of the office trailers to the airstrip so we can start the buildout tonight.
We also have an American contestant. Tina texted me last night that the warden hosted a midnight boxing match at the prison, and she got great footage of Brady Yourell winning and then doing his white rap. He’s the perfect idiot
to sacrifice to the reality show gods. We just have to get Boss Man to sign off on him and his intro package, which we can do in three hours.
Just north of the plane are two tents surrounding two Humvees, right where the tarmac ends and the desert begins. Peter and three members of his tribe are camping there Survivor-style while they work on the plane. No hotel rooms for them. They’re like cockroaches, ready to survive any apocalypse. They really would have made a great TV show.
“How’s it going?” I ask Jim.
“Peter and Lionel are almost done running cable,” he says, then talks into his walkie-talkie. “Two more long Cat5 cables, flying in,” he says into his headset, then grabs the coiled cables off the table and runs up the rear airstair.
I’m alone in the cool quiet desert, standing under the nose of this plane destined to crash into the sea. My concept…my show…my production…happens in forty-eight hours, after two years of work. My baby is walking on her own, without me. Each team member is doing his or her job. Now, I can step back and just observe and make adjustments. That’s good producing.
I dart up the back airstair, into the rear of the plane. Hot saws cut metal and shoot sparks while the blue flames from welding torches blind my eyes. They have ripped out all the overhead bins, carpeting, veneer, and plush chairs. We must get to the bare metal to rig cameras. I can see straight through the plane now, to the light coming from the open cockpit door. I dance on my toes, imagining I’m one of the six prisoners fighting to the death.
Down inside the ripped-open rear cargo area, a welder lies on the floor and seals a long metal pipe against the metal fuselage with his blue flame. I jump down into the sunken pit next to him and swing my arms and kick my legs. This was a good idea. The fighters get an extra six feet of space, which will open the strike zone and reduce close grappling. The welder turns down his torch, flips his mask up, and grins at me. His entire face is tattooed jet black, and his yellow cat-eye contacts and sharpened canine teeth glint in the tiny blue flame.
“Panther, good to see you again,” I say, and he nods. “What are the pipes for?”
“They’ll run the cables from the rear cameras forward into the steel cage Jim built.”
“Make them strong. They have to take some heavy abuse.” Feeling good, I vault out of the rear fight pit and head into the open middle area.
Bree with her blue skin and white buzz cut and Michel with the golden chainmail face are mounting polyurethane wheels on the metal sections of flooring.
“Hello, Bree. Building the retractable floors?”
Bree looks up, smiles, and glances down. Maybe she’s too timid to answer the executive producer. She also may be following instructions from Peter to stay formal.
Michel speaks for her. “Yes, this flooring will retract and expose the cargo areas.”
“How fast?” I ask. “I want some choice.”
“The wheels will be attached to a variable motor that can be programmed with a timer to run slow, medium, or fast—anything you want.”
“Me likey.” I keep walking.
Jim the super production assistant uses a power drill to mount a camera dome against the metal wall of the plane.
“Why are you putting holes in my plane, Tim?”
Jim sputters. “Peter and Lionel asked me to drill holes for the camera mounts wherever there’s a ring.” He points to black Sharpie circles that run the length of the plane.
“I know what you’re doing, I’m just messing with you,” I say, and walk five more steps to finally reach the exposed front cargo area.
Peter and Lionel are down in the pit, feeding cable through a pipe to a man wearing black cotton pajamas who’s lying on the floor, attaching cables to the transmitter.
“Are you going to be ready to fly by four this afternoon?” I ask.
Lionel swears under his breath. Peter’s cooler and offers his hand, which I shake. I want to look in his eyes, but I end up staring at the brushed metal scar running down his face.
“I have to ask this, Peter. How does your flesh attach?”
“My skin and muscle cells are actually growing into a bone and cadaver collagen matrix from a medical lab, which is fused to paper-thin medical grade stainless steel,” Peter says. He grins, and part of his scab opens. A drop of blood runs down his face. “But it needs work.”
“You gotta push the envelope,” I say, then focus on Lionel yanking cord next to him. His arms and legs tremble; he’s drenched with sweat and he’s muttering. Poor Lionel, working with Peter and his alien crew must be like working on a bad Star Trek episode.
“What do you think, Lionel?” Peter asks. “Are we going to make it?”
Lionel nods grudgingly. “We can transmit twenty CCTV signals and six solid Wi-Fi signals from the GoPros. Peter’s guy did it.” He points at the man in the black pajamas on the floor.
“Turn over, Honu,” Peter says, and kicks his ankle.
The man on the floor turns over and looks at me. A line of bumpy black, white, and green reptile scales run across his forehead and up his skull. He looks like a Klingon dinosaur. The members of Peter’s freak squad are docile despite their appearance, but this guy has a stare that bugs me. He wasn’t in the tribe two years ago, when I did my pitch reel with them.
“What are you supposed to be?” I ask him.
“I am a sea turtle,” he says.
“I am the executive producer. You’re rigging my show.”
“Yes, sir,” he says, and lowers his eyes like he should.
I turn to Lionel and Peter. “What about zoom?”
“I can give you fifteen percent zoom on all cameras,” Peter says.
“The control room will want more. Work on that.” I walk to the open cockpit door. Pauline the pilot flicks switches.
“How’s my bird? You ready to fly this baby low and slow?” I ask.
Pauline smiles. Her eyes are hidden behind mirrored aviator glasses, and her hair is tied up in a red bandana. She wears the same pink t-shirt and blue overalls, and she flexes her biceps like a wild version of Rosie the Riveter.
“We can do it!” she barks, then points at me. “But I still want to dump the rear airstair.”
“We’ll leave it on the runway on game day, once everyone boards. The cleanup crew will break it down and cart it away with all the other junk.”
“Love it! We’ll be like a Skydiving Club. No drag on takeoff, and we just bail out the back.” Pauline bounces in her seat like cheerleader.
I turn my head and shout at no one in particular. “Yo! Minions! I haven’t approved the steel cockpit door yet! When am I going to see that?”
Jim stops drilling and stands at attention. “Hachiro found a used steel door with a hinge handle from a warehouse electrical panel. It’s outside and already cut to fit. Once I reinforce the doorway, I can attach hinges and hang it.”
“How will Pauline lock it once it’s on autopilot?” I ask.
“Three one-inch padlocks,” Jim says. “Old school.”
“I like it. Ooh Rah!” I shout.
“Ooh Rah!” the crew shouts back.
I hear someone coming up the rear airstair. It’s Tina, back from Idaho, and she strides up the middle of the fuselage with a big smile on her face. She holds up her cellphone. “I have a QuickTime movie on my camera roll to show you,” she says to me, ignoring the rest of the crew. She walks into the cockpit. “Pauline, can we have some privacy, please?”
Pauline grins from behind her aviator glasses. “Mommy and Daddy want to get their grind on? If you want to join the Mile High Club during the test flight, I can help you.” She sniffs and moves her jaw like she’s high on coke. Tina rolls her eyes and shuts the cockpit door.
“So Brady Yourell is our guy?” I ask.
“I edited the intro and uploaded it. Boss Man just gave the approval.”
That news stings. “You edited the footage and already uploaded it? Don’t you think I should have seen it and signed off before you showed it to Boss Man?�
� I ask.
Her eyes shoot anger darts at me. “We have a test flight today, and we fly to Mexico tomorrow. As head of casting, I chose expediency.”
This fast approval could be more proof that she fucked Boss Man. Everything I’ve ever submitted to him required changes. That’s what I want to say, but now I must think like a producer, not a jealous boyfriend. “You still should have shown me,” I say instead.
“You were cc’d on the email I sent him. You could have sent me notes then,” she says.
“I don’t read emails I’m cc’d on. If it’s urgent, you text, email me directly, or call.”
“Boss Man had no changes!” she shouts.
I motion with my palms to keep it down. “We’re a united front, remember?”
Tina holds out her cellphone and brings up a video and hits play. She grabs my elbow right at my funny bone and squeezes. “This is the video, look at it right now, then!”
“That hurts,” I say, and yank my elbow away. Brady appears on the tiny screen. His pale skin is covered in black swastika tattoos. He punches a black guy unconscious, then throws his arms up, struts, and starts to rap, but it’s too distracting to watch and my mind drifts.
“What about that new guy? Did you check him out?” I ask, nodding toward the team on the other side of the cockpit door.
“He passed the first background check, but the private eye is digging deeper. Why?” She now has a softer tone, but she narrows her eyes at me.
“He looked at me weird. What’s his story?”
“His name is Vic Lowry. He did IT at Microsoft for years. He never got promoted, so he stole money from the company, and then hurt a cop who tried to arrest him. He had to go underground. He met Peter at a suspension show in Seattle and joined the tribe.”
“Is that what he told you, or what Peter told you?”
“It’s what Peter told me, but I’m checking it out,”
“He’s less docile than Peter’s other disciples,” I say. “Keep me posted about him.” Tina touches my chest and comes close. “And we shouldn’t fight. We should enjoy this, after all our hard work.” She runs her fingers across the railroad stitches on my arm.
