The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes

by Marcus Sakey

  The bottle of Blanton’s still had a couple of inches left in it. He opened a cabinet—knew just which one—and took out a rocks glass. The smell was melting caramel; the taste was melting gold. He closed his eyes and felt the familiar, lovely burn. Better. Better.

  Okay. What do you know?

  Well, first, this was his house, and he was Daniel Hayes. Those two facts were now solid. Which meant the BMW was his car, and that for some reason, he had driven it cross-country to that lonely Maine beach. The same beach, it appeared, where he’d gotten married to Laney Thayer.

  So where was she?

  No way to tell exactly how long he’d been gone, but at least a week. And what, four days since he woke up without his memory? Four days was a long time for someone to be missing. She must have gone crazy. Been calling the police, the hospitals. Maybe she was running the cops ragged right this second. That would explain the dishes in the sink, the housekeeping.

  If that’s true, she might have called to see if you were back. You should check the—

  He found the answering machine on the other side of the counter. The cords were frayed, and the plastic body was shattered like someone had jumped up and down on it.

  Right. No messages, then.

  Daniel refilled his glass, then returned to the front hall. Like everything else in the house, the staircase was striking without being gaudy, wooden steps rising from polished marble with airy grace. Whatever worries they might have had, money wasn’t one of them. At the top of the stairs, arbitrarily, he chose left.

  The master bedroom. Holding the glass like a totem, he stepped in.

  The room took up half the second floor. Windows on three sides gave way to sweeping sunny vistas, the backyard, trees. There were more photographs, but he didn’t think he could handle more pictures right now. The bed was a full-size, smaller than he’d expected. A size that belonged to couples who chose to touch when they slept. The covers were neat. His end table held an alarm clock, a lamp. He opened the drawer: lip balm, lambskin condoms, a dish filled with coins, a Gregg Hurwitz novel. It felt like something was missing, but he couldn’t have said what.

  Laney’s side table had a pile of scripts a foot high. She’d been looking for her next project, wanting to cash in the Candy Girls cred for a meaty role in a serious film. It had always made him smile, the look on her face while she read scripts. Totally unaware of the outside world as she leaned against the headboard, pages held in both hands. Her lips moving and face trying on the emotions of the characters. Sometimes he’d put down whatever he was reading and watch her, catch an advance screening.

  The memory took his legs away. His hands shook as he raised the glass to his lips. He took a long swallow, then coughed.

  More. There had to be more.

  He forced himself up, a little wobbly. Walked into the bathroom: sunken tub, enclosed shower, the lighting an actress would demand. A window looking out onto the avocado tree in the backyard, the leaves so green they looked wet. Daniel moved to the counter, picked up a small container of moisturizer. When he opened the top, a sweet lemony smell rose, like the best dessert in the world, like a night in a Caribbean hammock, like lying down beside Laney, the smell of the stuff mingling with the smell of her, the way she turned on her side and made soft noises and reached back, fumbling, to grab his arm and pull it around her, draping him across her like a favorite blanket. God, they had fit well together, their bodies were made for it, and even after all the years, the feel of her skin against his set him to tingling. As luxuriously comforting as a hot shower.

  The bathroom had gone bleary and wet. Daniel wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. He set the skin cream on the counter, went back down the hall.

  The next door opened into what looked like a guest room. Tasteful, but emotionally resonant as a hotel suite. He didn’t bother, just closed the door and went into his office.

  It was a third bedroom they’d converted, ripping up the carpet and putting in shelves. Three walls were covered floor to ceiling with books and bound scripts. A pale wood desk sat in front of a window looking out to trees and the street. The desk had a photo of Laney looking dynamite in an evening gown, a stack of unopened mail, a crystal statue, and a closed Dell laptop.

  The statue was the one from the photo downstairs, the one he’d been holding while he stood at a podium. An abstract curve of sweeping glass. At the bottom there was a small plaque, which read:

  BEST WRITING IN A NEW DRAMA CANDY GIRLS “Broken Wings” Daniel Hayes

  Huh.

  Huh.

  On second thought, maybe it wasn’t a lurid melodrama aimed at

  teenage girls.

  Well, that explained some things. The way he kept jumping into stories—making up tales for the people around him on the highway, the pleasure he’d felt writing in his journal, his “script” at the MRI clinic. He set the award back on the desk, pulled out the chair, and sat down.

  It felt . . . like home.

  For the first time he could remember, he felt at home. No, he didn’t have all the answers yet, but they were coming, each one triggering the next. Just sitting here they were coming. Looking at the wall-to-wall bookcases, he remembered putting them in, doing the work himself. Years ago, sweating in the heat, Drive-By Truckers singing about Daddy playing poker in the woods they say, back in his younger days. The smell of sawdust and the whine of the circular saw. They’d had the money to hire a professional, but he wanted to do it. There had been a time when carpentry had paid his rent, before sitting at a desk started to become more profitable than building one.

  This was where he belonged. This chair, this desk, this computer, those windows with their view of paradise, the ocean just visible over the swaying trees, the broad, quiet street, with the work trucks of gardeners and the sheriff’s department squad car—

  Fuck!

  The cruiser was parked two houses up pointing this direction. The lights were off, but he could make out the shape of a cop inside.

  Daniel leapt from the chair and shot to the other window. A pale blue sedan that screamed “unmarked police car” sat at the security gate. As he watched, the window rolled down and an arm reached out to the call box. A bell chimed.

  Someone must have seem him climb the fence. Did it matter? He knew who he was now. He was a television writer, and this was his house, and Laney was his wife, and he may as well face things, deal with the police. There would doubtless be consequences for running from them, but he could explain . . .

  What? You still don’t know why they’re after you.

  Maybe Laney, petrified with worry, had called the police, and they had tracked him . . . no. The cop in Maine had his gun out. Hell, he shot at me. This was no missing person case. They were after him. They thought he’d done something, something terrible.

  The bell sounded again, longer this time, the cop losing patience. Decision time. Think carefully.

  Well, he’d already run from the police once. How much worse would it really make it to run twice? And there was so much he still needed to know. Things he couldn’t find out from a jail cell.

  Besides. Easier to ask forgiveness than permission.

  Daniel tore open drawers. Pens, notebooks, a Slinky, a digital camera, rubber bands, stamps, DVD-Rs. The bottom drawer was

  file folders neatly tabbed: RANDOM IDEAS, DIALOGUE, REJECTIONS, MEM

  BERSHIPS, SHORT STORIES. A gold mine, but too much of it. He flipped to the back, where the tabs were more prosaic: UTILITIES, DR., CAR

  STUFF, RECEIPTS, BANK STATEMENTS.

  What are you looking for, a folder marked, “In case of sudden amnesia”? How much of your life would be in a file cabinet?

  “Mr. Hayes, this is Detective Waters. We know you’re there. Open the gate.” An intercom somewhere. There must be a button on the call box that let you speak. This was Malibu, home to the wealthy and liberal, and Waters would want to avoid a scene. But that didn’t mean his patience was infinite. They’d climb the fence so
on.

  The laptop! It would have his e-mail, scripts, calendar, contacts. It probably held more clues than anything else in the house. Daniel yanked the power cord from the wall and wrapped it around the computer.

  Time to go. The cops were at the front, so the back seemed like his best option. He was halfway down the steps when he thought of one more thing. He froze, cursed. The odds that the house was being surrounded went up second by second. The smart move was to get out right now, to just sprint out the back door—

  “Mr. Hayes,” the detective’s voice echoing closer now; the speaker must be downstairs. “I know you’re scared, but running from us is the wrong thing to do. Open the gate.”

  Daniel turned, raced up the stairs, swung into the master bedroom. Hustled past the bed, into the bathroom, and grabbed the lemon moisturizer, the one that had brought Laney to him so powerfully.

  Now he could leave.

  The bathroom window was in the back of the house, facing the yard with the avocado tree. He could see the street beyond, but no sign of a cop car. He had the window half-open when he heard banging on the front door.

  “Police! Open up!”

  He was pleased that he didn’t panic, didn’t freeze. Just forced the window the rest of the way, then unlatched the screen and yanked it aside. Leaf-carved sunlight spilled across his hands. The avocado tree was densely branched, most of them small, none of them easily reachable. Clusters of dark fruit swung, and he remembered that when they fell the backyard smelled like a Mexican restaurant.

  Daniel jerked a bath towel from a hook and wrapped it around the computer, then leaned out the window to drop it to the grass. It landed with a thump, and he winced, partly for the computer and partly for himself, then tossed the moisturizer, put one foot on the ledge, and ducked through the window frame. Behind him he heard the yelling grow suddenly louder, and then pounding footsteps, the horse-hoof sound of men running. Well, this should be fun.

  He leapt into the tree.

  Vertigo only had him for a moment before he felt the leaves slapping at him, the thin branches whipping his face and hands. He squinted as much as he could, kept his arms out and swinging. The air that rushed by was cool and sweet. He could smell the ocean, taste the bitter leaves. Then his hand hit something, and he grabbed, got it, slowed himself, lost it. Tilted back, arms wobbling and flinging wild, panic hitting as his forward vector gave way to gravity, and down he fell, ripping through in a maelstrom of green leaves and blue sky and blinding sun. The ground met him hard, right on his ass.

  The suddenness of the pain, the sheer physicality of it brought tears to his eyes, little kid tears for a little kid injury, but he didn’t have time. He snatched up the computer and the moisturizer and limped along the wall of the house, ducking beneath the windows.

  As he hauled himself over the fence, he could hear the cops inside the house, yelling to one another that a room was clear. His breath was shallow and his heart was racing and pain ran up and down his spine in pulses as he snuck away from his own home like a thief.

  For all that, he wanted to laugh, wanted to yell and dance. Through the looking glass? Down the rabbit hole?

  Oh, hell yes.

  “W

  hat are we doing today?” The woman—she’d said her name was Sherri—hid bad skin under a thick layer of makeup.

  Her hair was elaborately fried.

  “I want a change.” Daniel met her eyes in the mirror. “Big or little?”

  “Go nuts.”

  The stylist smiled and led him to the shampoo bowl. After he’d made it back to his car, the urge to go through the laptop right there had been damn near irresistible. But the police would be after him, and he had to deal with that.

  Apparently you’re a writer. Television, but still. Used to figuring out the intricacies of plot, of anticipating your characters’ next moves. So what would your move be if you were making this up?

  Which was how he’d ended up in this hair salon in Santa Monica, sitting still for damn near two hours. Thinking, I’m married. My name is Daniel Hayes and I’m a successful writer married to a gorgeous actress and we’re in love and have a house in Malibu and a perfect life.

  And: If that’s true, why are the police chasing you from one end of the country to the other? Why did you try to kill yourself in Maine? Why on the beach where you got married? Where’s your wedding ring? Hell, where’s your wife?

  Meanwhile, Sherri went at his hair like it had stolen her parking spot. She scissored and razor-cut and twisted foils and dabbed coloring. Under her ministrations, his affable, longish brown hair vanished, replaced by a rakish faux-hawk, sandy with blond highlights, gelled and twisted and pointed different directions. He didn’t look like a movie star, but his hair sure did.

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t recognize myself.”

  “That was the point, right?”

  Down the block the smell of tomato sauce from a restaurant

  tightened his stomach, but he walked past to the tanning salon on the other side. A bell on the door jingled as he stepped in. “Do you guys have that spray stuff?”

  They did.

  Next was clothing. A squirrel-cheeked girl told him they’d be closing in fifteen minutes, and he browsed quickly, then got a fitting room and pulled the curtain. Time for new clothes anyway. Scrubbing his shirt in a rest stop sink had stopped doing much seven states back. He slid on a pair of canvas cargo pants, a black tee, and a Hawaiian shirt with blue and green parrots on it. Bug-eyed sunglasses and a canvas messenger bag completed the outfit.

  Daniel looked in the mirror. Well, it’s official. You’re a douche bag.

  The man staring back had a dark tan, trying-too-hard hair, and sunglasses that obscured half his face. Not so over-the-top that he would be noticeable, but he certainly didn’t look familiar to himself.

  Of course, that and four dollars will get you a cup of coffee.

  “You look familiar,” the clerk said as she rang him up.

  “I get that a lot.” He turned away. Let her think he was a B-list star who wanted privacy. Out on the street, he transferred the bank statements, computer, and Laney’s moisturizer into the bag, then bundled up his old clothes and tossed them in a trash bin on the way to the Third Street Promenade.

  It was dark outside, and the sunglasses made it darker, but he didn’t want to risk taking them off. Luckily, he was in Los Angeles. If a second head had sprouted from his belly and begun pitching a spec script, it wouldn’t have drawn more than a glance.

  Okay. That takes care of Step One. Now, Step Two.

  The café had tall bookshelves and a varied clientele, a few chatting, most lost in their laptops. There were fancy juices and a dozen kinds of tea and complicated coffee apparatus. Most important, there was a sign offering free wireless. He got coffee and a bran muffin, and took a table in the back, away from the window.

  A person’s computer could reveal more about his life than his mother. Especially a writer’s computer. There would be e-mail, years’ worth. Addresses and phone numbers. Scripts and stories. Pictures and financial statements and maybe even a journal. Plus he could get on the Internet, log back into the world. Google himself and his wife. Do a little research on amnesia, see what the hell he was suffering from exactly, and what could be done about it—

  The screen welcomed him to Windows XP by name, and then asked for his password.

  Daniel rubbed at his face with both hands. What were passwords? Birthdays. The name of a girlfriend or a dog. The things that people never forgot, that they could count on being able to remember dead drunk or a year after they’d last entered it. The exact kind of thing that he was lacking.

  He typed “Laney,” hit enter.

  Did you forget your password? You can click the “?” button to see your password hint.

  When he clicked the button, a dialogue box appeared with the words “Life Begins.” Huh. Life begins. Probably just the thing to prompt him if he forgot—unless he f
orgot everything, in which case it was just cryptic. He tried again.

  “Life Begins”

  Did you forget your password? “LaneyThayer”

  Did you forget your password? “CandyGirls”

  Did you forget your password? “EmilySweet”

  Did you forget your password? “Malibu”

  Did you forget your password? “BMW”

  Did you forget your password? “FuckYouYouPieceOfCrap”

  Did you forget your password?

  This was pointless. He could type random words for the rest of his life and never get it right. It would have been funny if it weren’t so tragic. Survive a suicide attempt, drive three thousand miles, break into his own house, flee the police, and then end up stymied because he couldn’t remember the name of his favorite movie. Awesome.

  Daniel stowed the laptop. It was still a treasure trove; he just didn’t have the key yet. There had to be a way to break the security. Or he would remember, the same way little bits of his past kept leaking into his consciousness. Maybe he’d have a dream where the cast of Candy Girls broke into a musical number about his password.

  As he was choking down the rest of his muffin, he spotted a lonely terminal on a small desk in the back of the room. He stood, brushed the crumbs off his shirt. “How much to rent the computer?”

  “A buck for ten minutes, five an hour, ten for three.”

  Daniel passed the man a ten, got a slip of paper with a temporary log-in. The chair creaked as he sat down; the computer damn near creaked as he fired it up.

  He opened Firefox, waited for it to load, then went to Google and started to type. He’d gotten as far as “Laney Th” when it popped up suggestions: Laney Thayer, Laney Thayer Candy Girls, Laney Thayer Naked, Laney Thayer Accident, Laney Thayer Murder.

  The world throbbed out of focus.

  Everything blurring but the words “accident” and, worse, “murder.” The letters not making sense. The vicious serifs of the “M,” the complicit wriggle of the “r.” The stone in his stomach twisted, revealing edges that snagged and tore.