“I, uh, I brought you a glass,” she said.
“In the middle of this chemical and mechanical wasteland,” Doc said, “how refreshing to meet with a moment of unexpected grace. My dear, you make me think of village greens and little white courthouses.”
“We had one of those,” the waitress said. She looked at the rest of us. “Anything else I can do for y’all?”
“We’re fine,” Tatiana said. “Bye.”
“With a lynching tree in front of it,” Doc said after she was gone. “The courthouse, I mean. The South is so green and lush that you forget it’s from the nitrogen in all that blood.” He poured the beer carefully, tilting the glass to control the head, lifted it, and drank half of it down. “Before I lost my license,” he said to me, “I was a pediatrician. That’s good training, because you treat everything. And that’s pretty much what Thistle’s got, everything.”
“Why’d you lose your license?”
“What do you care?”
“Just thinking about Thistle,” I said. “You’re pumping her full of dope, and I don’t know-”
“Young man,” Doc said. “Thistle’s system is cleaner right now than it’s been in years. One of the reasons I sedate her is to keep her from going out and scoring some really deleterious shit. And don’t go getting all protective about Thistle. She’s not that amazing little girl you saw on television. She’s a fucking mess. I’m going to get her through this, and then I’m going to sit her down with a couple of friends to try to get her straight, because if I don’t-” He blinked heavily, finished the glass, and poured more. “If I don’t,” he said, “she’s going to get paid at the end of the filming, and I think she’ll go right out and kill herself. Some of the stuff she’s been using, she might as well have been drinking Drano.”
I said, “Mmm-hmm.”
“I lost my license because I was an addict,” Doc said, sounding irritated. “And that’s another item on my resume that makes me the right doctor for Thistle.” He picked up the glass of beer. “See this? This is standing in for cocaine, barbiturates, methedrine, and horse. I walked away from all that, even though it turned me inside out and left me to dry, red and wet, in the sun. Now I drink the occasional beer. A little cognac now and then. I know what she’s going through. And I loved that little girl on TV, too. I’m not going to let anything happen to her.”
“Other than this movie,” Tatiana said.
Doc’s hand stopped with the beer inches from his mouth. After a moment, he said, “Nothing I can do about that.”
Tatiana said, “I really ought to quit.”
“You should not,” Doc said. “You should stay right where you are. Try to keep that child in one piece.”
“Not to be insensitive, but we’ve all seen people who fucked themselves up,” I said, “and it’s very dramatic. And we’ve all got friends who are healthy now, when there was a time we didn’t think they’d live through the week. How fragile is she, really?”
“Thistle Downing,” Doc said, “is held together by cobwebs.”
“Doc’s okay,” Tatiana said. We were in her car, driving back to the studio. “He likes to talk, wants to write the great American novel, and he reads too much Faulkner. But he’s okay.”
“I’ll take your word.”
“You were saying something. When he came in, I mean. About the Achilles Heel or something.”
“The right way to look at the problem,” I said. “You’re not going to like it.”
She flipped up her indicator for the turn. “I don’t much like any of it.”
“It’s all very well to steal costumes and send people to places where the crew isn’t. But if you want to bring this movie down once and for all, there’s only one thing you need to knock a hole in, and that’s Thistle.”
Tatiana said, with great feeling, “Oh, fuck.”
“And you,” I said. “You were going to tell me what scares you senseless.”
“It’s Thistle, again,” she said. “I’m not sure she understands what kind of movie this is.”
14
Dead wet girls
“I need to hire someone to sit outside her apartment tonight,” I said. “I know a guy who’s perfect for the job. It’ll run maybe three hundred fifty bucks.”
“And you think this is necessary,” Trey Annunziato said. She’d dumped the yellow outfit in favor of a one-piece, high-collared garment in black that looked like something that might be worn to a Star Trek funeral.
“Necessary? Only if you want to make your movie.”
The head-tilted-to-one-side pose. “Because …”
“Because she’s ground zero. If anything happens to her, you haven’t got two sticks to rub together.”
Trey was wearing long dangling earrings, little gold chains about four inches long with a good-size diamond at the end of each. One of the stones had tangled in her hair, and I watched the lazy expertise of her long fingers as she freed it. “Whom do you have in mind?”
“You don’t need to know. Someone I trust. Someone who has nothing to do with your family or its operations. I can guarantee it.”
“How can you guarantee that?”
“Because he’s fully employed by a Chinese firm.”
“Ah,” Trey said.
We were back in the conversation area, having a conversation. The password at the gate had been “buttercup,” and I wondered if Trey was just having some fun. I had things to do, but I figured that fidgeting would just inspire her to prolong the chat, so I sat back and smiled.
“Fine,” she said, once the earring was dangling free. “Do it.”
“Do you know anything about a couple of girls? I mean really girls, one of them maybe fourteen, and the other under ten.”
“No.” Her lack of interest was palpable. “Why?”
“They followed me out of here yesterday.”
“You were followed by children? And you couldn’t lose them?”
“If I’d lost them,” I said, “I wouldn’t have gotten close enough to know they were children.”
“Point taken. No, no idea. Maybe that’s all they were, just kids, following you for fun.”
“Maybe. Probably. Listen, do you really think Thistle can do this?”
The look I got went through me and continued right through the wall behind me. “Do what?”
“This movie.”
For a moment, I didn’t think she’d answer. Then she said, “Of course. Would I be shelling out money like this if I didn’t think she could deliver?”
“Fine.” I got up.
“Would you like to tell me what prompted that question?”
“The doctor says she’s a mess. A couple of people on the production don’t think she even realizes she’s going to have to do sex.”
“She’s had the scripts,” Trey said icily, “for six weeks.”
“Having them and reading them aren’t the same things.”
“She’ll do it,” Trey said, and her face was practically rigid, “or I’ll personally see that she’s sitting on some curb in Hollywood with one hand out for change and the other trying to pick invisible bugs out of her skin.”
My throat was suddenly tight. “Whereas if she does the movie, she can use both hands on the bugs and pick at them on the couch in some flophouse.”
“How Thistle Downing chooses to live her life is not my responsibility. She could also take the money she’s going to make and go clean herself up. And I have to say that I don’t much like your tone.”
“Sorry,” I said.
“You haven’t even met her, and you’re already buying the poor Thistle legend. Would you be so consumed with pity if she were male? I doubt it. You’d think, what a jerk. But since it’s a woman, you get all teary and turn her into a helpless little waif, battered by the big bad world. You know something? Crooks are the world’s biggest sexists.”
“I’m asking a question you should be asking yourself,” I said. “Your movie depends on her.”
“Do you think I haven’t thought about this? I’ve done everything I can to make it easy. She starts with two days of dialogue, no nudity at all, much less sex. I’m willing to use a body double for some of the worst bits. She’s got women all over the sound stage, and Rodd might as well be a woman for all the interest he has in the female sex. I’ve-we’ve-talked to her about the movie. I’ve done everything except tattoo the script on her arms, and I’d do that too if it wouldn’t show on camera.”
“Got it.”
Now she was standing, too. “Remember which side you’re on, Mr. Bender. Your job is to prevent this movie from getting derailed, and if that means keeping that little junkie on the beam, you’ll do it. I don’t know what Lyle and Wattles are squeezing you with, but I can’t imagine it’s very pleasant.”
“I’ve enjoyed our chat,” I said.
“I don’t care one way or the other. What’s your man going to be looking for tonight?”
“Trouble. Anyone who might want to borrow Thistle the night before she’s supposed to start working. And I’m going with Doc tomorrow morning when he picks her up.”
After a moment, she said, “Good thinking. Wait a minute.” She turned and said, “Eduardo.”
And there he loomed: black-clad, servile, and dangerous, all at the same time. “Yes, Miss Trey.”
“I need an X-acto knife.”
“One second.” He wheeled and left.
I watched him go. “Who says you can’t get good help?”
Trey looked at me but her mind was elsewhere. “Your friend, he’s competent?”
“He’s a professional look-out man.”
“Good.” She favored me with a smile that didn’t have much behind it. “Sorry if I got a little snappish. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
“You going to do the flower shops?”
“Too much wastage. The damn things die before you can sell them. Too fragile.” One hand came up, palm out, in a stop gesture. “No parallels with Thistle Downing, please. No wilting blossom or fragility metaphors. Thank you, Eduardo.”
She plucked a wicked-looking, silvery X-acto from his hand and went to the painting. It took her about five seconds to slice the face of the handsome, Byronic man out of the canvas. She did it quickly and expertly, leaving a face-shaped hole in the painting.
“Give this to your friend,” she said, handing it to me. “Tell him to memorize this face, and if he sees the man who owns it, he should kill him.”
I took it, said I’d pass the word along, and went to see my daughter.
On Tuesday afternoons, if I hadn’t done anything to offend Kathy, such as calling too often or not calling enough, I got to take Rina out for a couple of hours. The fact that I got to see her at all was, in essence, an act of charity on Kathy’s part. Throughout the separation proceedings, she never once played the card that I was a career criminal. She got custody, but she could also have had a restraining order to keep me away from Rina. The fact that she hadn’t was something for which I was deeply grateful.
When I pulled up, my daughter was waiting in front of the house we all used to live in, just south of the Boulevard, which meant that I didn’t have to see Kathy if she was there, or know that she’d left Rina alone, if she wasn’t there.
“You’ve grown an inch in a week,” I said as she climbed into the car.
“It’s your genes,” she said, settling in. “Mom’s like normal size.”
“She’s actually short,” I said, “but she makes up for it with the force of her will.”
“I need ice cream,” Rina said. She usually shies away from discussion of her mother, which shows that she’s smarter than I am. I hope she also shies away from discussing me with Kathy.
“I think ice cream is achievable.” My old neighborhood slid by, full of memories, some of them good. “Anyplace special?”
“Somewhere close. I have a lot of homework.”
I signaled for a right without replying, and Rina said, “I really do. Don’t get your feelings all hurt.”
Of course, my feelings weren’t hurt. I’m an adult. “What kind of homework?”
“Genetics.”
“In sixth grade?”
“I’m accelerated, Dad. You know that.”
“When I was in sixth grade we were looking at maps.”
“When you were in sixth grade,” Rina said, “most of the world hadn’t even been mapped.”
“Humor is a dominant trait,” I said.
“Brown eyes, too. That pisses Mom off, that I got your eye color.”
“Hard to imagine.”
“What?” She reached for the radio and I gently intercepted her hand. I loved my daughter but I hated her music.
“Your mother being pissed off,” I said, and then added “about eye color. But she’s dominant in other ways.”
“Mom’s lawyer would call that alienating the child from the custodial parent,” Rina said. “No music?”
“I meant it genetically, not emotionally.”
She made a sound I could only interpret as a scoff, sort of a burst of air. “You did not.”
“I did. Except for your eye color, you look just like her.” And she did; every time I looked at her I saw the girl I’d fallen in love with for life when I was sixteen and she was fifteen. Kathy and I had stayed together through high school and through her college and my sort-of college, and then we’d gotten married. And stayed married until it became inescapable that one of us was going to have to change, and that it was going to be me, and that I couldn’t. And none of it was anything I was proud of.
“You’re as beautiful as she is,” I said.
“Oh, I’m so beautiful,” Rina said. “How come nobody except you notices?”
“If by ‘nobody,’ you mean the boys at school, I’m glad to hear it. You’ll be fighting them off soon enough.”
“So why no music?”
“If we could find something we both agreed was music, it’d be fine.”
“No music, then.” She lifted the metal flap on her seatbelt and let it snap closed. Then she did it again. “What are you up to?”
“Freelancing,” I said. “Trying to stay out of houses with large dogs in them.”
“One way to do that,” she said, “would be not to go into houses that don’t belong to you.”
“Jesus,” I said. “I’d probably end up watching television.”
Rina said, “Millions of people do.”
I turned right on Ventura, heading for 31 Flavors. Rina stole a look at me and said, “What happened to your face?”
“A chandelier exploded.”
“You were under it?”
“Actually, I was swinging from it.”
“See, this is one of the things that makes me different from my friends,” she said. “When I ask them what their fathers do, they say something like banking or real estate. I say he swings on chandeliers in other people’s houses and comes home looking like he donated blood with his face.”
“Interesting guy.”
She slumped down in her seat, the sit-on-the lungs posture of teenage discontent. “That’s one way to look at it.”
“Is there another?”
She rolled her window down and rolled it up again. Then she said, “Never mind.”
I’m always happy to sidestep a real issue. “All right.”
“Why’d you have to be so honest with me when I was little? Why couldn’t you tell me you were a chef or something?”
“Well, I only work about two nights a month, for one thing. And it seemed like a good idea to tell you the truth.”
“Maybe that’s overrated.”
“Telling the truth?”
“Let’s drop it,” she said. “You know what I’m talking about.” She reached over and took my hand. “We don’t see each other enough. I promise not to pick a fight.”
“In that case,” I said. “You can listen to whatever you want.”
It took her less than five seconds to find something that s
ounded to me like a fender assembly plant being attacked by a bunch of guys with nail guns, but she nodded along with it. I decided to show her how much I loved her, so I reached over and turned it up.
Rina laughed, and I felt better than I had in days.
“Remember how you once told me that the most interesting questions about a society are the ones they don’t ask?” Rina had a double-thick double-chocolate double-malt in front of her, so viscous she couldn’t get it up the straw.
“The thought wasn’t original with me, but I probably said it.”
“So explain to me about Japanese horror movies.”
“Not really one of my fields,” I said. “But which ones? The old radioactive monsters-”
She shook her head as she dredged the straw through the shake and licked off the clump of glop that came up with it. She was wearing rimless glasses that I hadn’t seen before, and it almost broke my heart that I hadn’t known she had them. “No, those are easy to figure. The newer ones, you know, Ring and Ju-On and those.”
“What’s hard to figure? They’re ghost stories.”
“Yeah, sure, but what’s with all the dead wet girls?”
“Ah. Dead wet girls. Well, first, they’re ghost stories, right? The dead wet girls are ghosts.”
“Dead wet girl ghosts.”
“Lots of Asian cultures, the Chinese and the Japanese, anyway, believe that the ghost of someone who was wronged before death is especially dangerous. Women and girls in Japan are sort of repressed. They’re relatively powerless. They can’t take revenge during their lifetime, so they’re more likely to bear a grudge after they’re dead. So the ghosts are female. And as for dead, well, they’re ghosts, so they’re dead by default. And my guess is that they’re young, meaning girls, because the audience for the movies is pretty much your age. So that gets you to dead girls.”
“That’s two out of three. And wet?”
“Well, that’s probably something else. The movies are made by men, and lots of men like to look at wet girls. You’ll notice there aren’t any movies about dead wet ugly girls.”
“No. They’re all dead wet pretty girls.” She gazed out the window at the traffic on Ventura, and I studied her mother’s bone structure, magically transferred to my daughter’s face. She caught me looking when she turned back and gave me a smile that was all in the eyes before she returned her attention to the goop in her glass. “Do I ask you too many questions?”
Crashed jb-1 Page 10
