by Davis Bunn
It granted Sylvie the ability to say, in all truthfulness, “I’ll find a way through this.”
“Of course you will,” Marcela said. “And we’ll help.”
Sylvie told herself it was utterly unbecoming for a boss to break down and weep, especially in front of the police chief and three of her employees. “I can’t tell you what this means. But I couldn’t possibly ask you . . .”
“One step at a time,” Porter said. “Choose your attorney. Get them up to speed.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Good,” Marcela said. “At least that’s settled.”
“Done and dusted,” Sandy agreed.
Rick tapped the rim of the snifter with one fingernail, making it ting. “Now get ready for round two.”
“What?”
Marcela nudged the glass closer. “Drink.”
The only sensation Sylvie had from the two stiff brandies was a muffled distance from her surroundings. She observed the fact that she could not stop leaking tears. She saw how the grim demeanor they shared only grew more severe. The one comforting note was how they all shifted closer to her. It was as though they were determined to shelter her the very best way they could. Their concern only further clouded her vision.
Sylvie wiped her eyes and watched as Marcela drew a tablet from her purse and set it on the bar. Rick reached across the bar and took Sylvie’s hand. Sylvie actually had difficulty hearing precisely what Marcela said. Something about Marcela’s neighbors, two mad old ladies who loved Marcela and her husband to bits and made them all kinds of superfattening delicacies from their native Argentina. How the two old ladies were addicted to the daytime telenovelas. Only, they had gone on and on, this week, about some celebrity wedding....
Sylvie was not clear on exactly how things proceeded from that point onward. Something about the way they were all clustered about her, so close she could feel their unified strength and support, left her unable to focus intently upon anything.
Then she was struck by the sudden realization that Connor must have traveled south to Los Angeles for this wedding. There had to have been something terrible....
It could only be one thing: a traffic accident.
Marcela’s words became a faint buzz. All Sylvie clearly understood was how sorry Marcela was to be the one to have to tell her this.
Sylvie took a hard breath, and asked, “What happened to Connor?”
In reply, Marcela turned the tablet around, brought up the YouTube website, and hit play.
Some artificially bright cable personality was going on and on about . . . Sylvie could not understand what she was hearing. How could this woman be so falsely happy?
Then the scene shifted. And there he was.
The sight of Connor’s face appearing in the back of a white Rolls-Royce and speaking to the guards filled Sylvie with an icy calm. When Connor emerged from that ridiculous car and started toward the gaudy palace, she said, “Turn that off.”
“I’m so sorry,” Marcela said.
“It doesn’t matter.” Sylvie rose from the stool. “I’m going back upstairs.”
“I’ll come with you,” Marcela said.
Sylvie started to object, then remained silent. She knew the reason they had all gathered about her had less to do with Connor’s actions than the betrayal she had endured nineteen months earlier. Connor was a mere shadow of that awful time. She had only known this actor for less than a week. There was no way he could have any impact on her. No. What she felt was merely the sensation of being returned to the nightmare she thought she had finally left behind.
Or so she tried to tell herself.
She started to thank them for coming together and supporting her. But the words remained stuck somewhere inside her. The whole thing was absurd. How could she feel hurt and disappointed by a man she clearly did not know at all? How could Connor possibly wound her?
When Marcela came around the bar and took hold of her arm, Sylvie protested, “I’m fine.”
“Of course you are. You’re the finest person I know.”
Sylvie felt a momentary burning from the words and the concern behind them. But she pushed that away as well. She had gotten through such an awful revelation before. This was nothing. The actor she knew as Connor Smith was of no importance whatsoever.
CHAPTER 27
A Lincoln Town Car waited for Connor around the first bend. When he opened the door, he was astonished to find Ami Chen seated in the back. She was dressed in what Connor had come to think of as standard agent chic—black silk slacks, black one-ply cashmere turtleneck, black suede pumps, dark purple pearls, and matching fingernail polish. Ami Chen was nothing if not predictable in her garb.
She had the laptop open on the central armrest. Her phone earpiece was slightly larger than Connor’s thumb and had a two-carat diamond in the lacquered surface, a gift from her husband. She gestured for Connor to enter, then went back to scrolling through a contract on her tablet. “No, no, no, I can live with clause four. The fifth is out of the question, strike it out utterly.... Raymond, I am not making requests here. Shall I proceed? Thank you ever so. The next two clauses are acceptable, the last . . . Hang on and I’ll ask.” Ami turned to Connor. “Can you ride a bike?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not talking about the kind with pedals.”
“I figured that. My answer is the same.”
Ami was just one-quarter Mandarin, but she liked to say it was the only part that mattered. She held to a distinctly Asian manner of tension and brusque command. Her small form reminded Connor of a black firecracker with the fuse lit. She leaned forward and asked the driver, “Why aren’t we moving?”
“I’m still waiting for somebody to give me a destination, ma’am.”
She said to Connor, “So tell.”
“My house.”
“Beverly Drive, south of Wilshire. Now go.” To the phone: “Yes, Raymond, he knows bikes. All right. Hang on.” She turned to Connor. “Raymond wants to know if you can do some of your own stunts.”
“Absolutely,” Connor replied. “Who is Raymond?”
“Casting agent and your new best friend. But only if what you claim about bikes is true. Raymond says that if you can’t ride well enough for high-speed close-ups, they will void the offer.”
“Tell him you’ll call back in twenty minutes with everything he needs to know about me and bikes.”
“Did you hear that, Raymond? How should I know? Evidence of one form or another, I assume. No, you’re certainly not holding. I need to speak with Connor about other matters. No, you are only the center of the universe once we have a signed contract and a deposited first payment.” Ami cut the connection. “You have to love the Raymonds of this world. There are too many to shoot.”
Connor asked, “That was Bond?”
She pointed to the driver, shook her head, and asked, “Gerald told you about the Web traffic?”
“And the studio executive.”
“Your breakup with the lovely Kali Lyndon could be the highest audience ratings the cable network receives this year. In the middle of the day.” Ami showed a rare smile, the expression of a contented cat. “How did it go back there?”
“Between Gerald’s redraft and the fact that we went out live, pretty good.”
“Gerald watched the feed. He said you did quite well. Any regrets?”
“Absolutely. I wish I had never started down that road with Kali.”
She surprised him by slipping off her glasses and revealing her piercing gaze. “Is my Connor growing up?”
“I sincerely hope so.” He hesitated, then decided there would never be a better time to speak of what had come to him on the ride south. “Can I ask you something?”
“Go ahead and we’ll see.”
“If there was one thing about my acting that you’d like to have me change, what would it be?”
“Oh, now, that’s a dangerous one.”
“What, you don’t think I can take
it?”
“Oh, I suppose it’s possible. The question is, do you want to go down that road? After all, you’ve made a highly successful career for yourself.”
“Playing the bad boy.”
“A particular kind of bad boy—the one who doesn’t care. Your characters are so utterly detached they can laugh as they’re tossed off the cliff.”
The words struck deep, as Ami clearly knew they would. Connor needed a moment before he asked, “You don’t want me to change that?”
“Of course not, darling, not if that is what the role calls for. Your audience adores this. But, well, let’s face it. You’re coasting. This type of role no longer challenges you.”
“So you’d like me to . . .”
“Grow a heart. But only if you can keep playing these uncaring characters when they’re called for. Just expand into new directions.” She tilted her head, examining her impact. “Was that a horrid thing to say?”
Connor rubbed the skin over his chest. “Only because it’s true.”
* * *
When the limo pulled into his drive, Connor found himself studying the house with uncommon intensity.
Ami asked, “Something wrong?”
“No, it’s just . . .” Connor suddenly felt foolish confessing. “I feel as though I haven’t been here in years.”
She tilted her head, examining him from a new angle. “What happened to you up there?”
“So much.” But now wasn’t the time to start on that.
Ami let Connor hold the front door for her, waited while he coded off the alarm, then moved slowly through his home’s public rooms. Although Connor was pressed by the ticking clock, he did not rush her. He felt as though he saw it with her, the two of them studying a stranger’s house. Then he excused himself and went upstairs for a quick shower and change of clothes.
Connor had bought the house on a whim. A friend who had tried his hand at acting and failed was now a realtor. When Connor had first begun to earn serious money as a television bad guy, the realtor had urged Connor to sink his new funds into this place, and to do it swiftly, because it would not remain on the market for more than a few hours. In fact, the house had not even been officially listed and Connor’s was the first of a dozen offers that same morning. His bank manager was well accustomed to the swoop-and-dive incomes of LA actors, and had the mortgage details completed in ninety minutes. Before he even wrapped his head around the idea, Connor owned a home and a mortgage large enough to give him nightmares.
The same realtor referred Connor to another former actor, now a contractor specializing in home reconstructions. The place certainly had needed a great deal of work. The home was late Craftsman, a movement shaped around a rejection of both Victorian foppery and the mass-produced housing that was swamping much of America. The house had been built in the forties, expanded haphazardly in the sixties, again in the seventies, and then once more in the early nineties. The contractor had proposed to tear out much of the interior and bring the entire structure to its original style. After Connor had signed onto another massive load of debt, the contractor had merged the rooms with broad-planked flooring, using oak when the original eucalyptus and teak proved impossibly expensive. The windows were rimmed with stained glass from a local artist, who also supplied all the downstairs light fixtures.
When Connor returned to the living room, Ami announced, “Gerald would positively die to live here. He’s bid four times on Craftsman homes and lost.”
“I’ll have him over for dinner when I get back.”
“It would please him no end.” She followed him through the living area and into the kitchen. “I am impressed.”
“Thanks.”
“And surprised. Two words I don’t use often.” Ami poked him in the chest. “Seeing this place, I think you just might be able to pull off the change in character.”
“‘Grow a heart,’ ” Connor said.
“Right.” She glanced at her watch. “Now show me what’s going to convince Raymond.”
“This way.” Connor led her through the kitchen and opened the door leading to the garage. When he had returned from his most recent and profitable journey to Japan, Connor had celebrated by buying two new toys. He turned on the lights, used the kitchen panel to reset the alarms, then shut and locked the door.
Ami still stood on the top step, surveying his pride and joy. “Oh, my. Wait, wait, I want to record this. I’ll send it as a link to Raymond and blow him out of his argyle socks. All right, tell me what I’m looking at.”
“This is a 1989 BMW M6, known in Europe as the M635 CSi,” Connor said. “Mine was the next-to-last model to roll off the assembly line. It was sold to a collector, who drove it less than two thousand miles.”
Ami smiled from behind her phone. “A perfect bad-boy car.”
Connor hoped the camera did not pick up on how those words stabbed him. “Original black diamond-flecked paint, black Recaro leather seats and interior. BBS racing rims. Modified M88/3 engine, the second-fastest BMW ever built.”
Ami lowered the phone a notch. “I admit it even makes this agent’s heart go pitter-pat. But why should Raymond be convinced of anything?”
“Because the car is not why we’re here.” Connor stepped to the second bay and swept off the dustcover. “This is.”
Ami cried, “What is that?”
“Ducati Multistrada. This S model is the fastest street-legal bike in the world.” Connor strapped his satchel onto the back. “Liquid-cooled, twelve hundred cc, ninety-degree twin with desmodromic valve actuation and variable cam timing. Multiplate clutch. Pirelli Scorpion racing tires.”
“I have no idea what you just said,” Ami told him.
“The people Raymond needs to impress will get it.” Connor walked over and hit the control raising the garage door, then pulled a helmet and quilted leather jacket from the wall rack. “Trellis-style tubular steel frame. Sachs shocks. Ducati Skyhook suspension. A pair of three hundred mill Brembo brake discs up front. A single two-sixty in back.”
Connor pushed the bike outside, waved Ami to join him, then hit the control to lower the garage door. “The S model comes equipped with a Bosch-designed inertial measurement unit, or IMU. It gauges the bike’s lean angle and interacts with the antilock braking and throttle management to bring it out of any high-speed skid.”
Ami demanded, “Wait, you’re leaving?”
“I promised I’d be back in time for my gig tonight in Miramar.”
“What gig?”
“Long story. Not acting.”
“I’m your agent. You need to keep me informed of all gigs!”
“Soon.” Connor strapped on the helmet, then lifted the face mask and asked, “Are you still recording?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” He hit the ignition and raised his voice. “One last thing. Zero to sixty in three seconds flat.”
CHAPTER 28
In the five months since Connor had last been on his bike, he had often dreamed of riding. The dreams always began with the sound. There was nothing like it on earth. The structure of a racing bike drew the rider down to a high-kneed crouch, the best position for an aerodynamic passage. The sound was monstrous. In his dreams, Connor first heard the bellow from a distance. The shifting gears took the bike through curves and dips; then Connor swooped in, drawn into the position of control. Or rather, as close to control as any human could be atop this much force. His dreams carried him through a few heart-swooping moments, before the end came. Connor either lost control or simply steered his bike partly around a corner and then turned away from safety and flew out over the cliff. His dreams always had the same end.
Connor had started riding at seventeen, using earnings from his music to buy an old Suzuki. He had ridden racing bikes owned by friends. He knew the danger rush, and he was ready for something that took him to the edge.
That became the problem.
There were secret clubs all over the LA basin. The website passwords were given out
only after the group personally accepted the newcomer. They usually met after midnight, with a route planned out in advance. Two, three hundred miles of empty moonlit terrain.
They flew. Fifty, sixty bikes, racing for the pure unadulterated rush.
Most racers spoke in a slow, careful cadence, totally at odds to their action on the bikes. They didn’t care where their mates came from. They never discussed the outside world. They rarely asked who the other riders were. They were uninterested in what jobs others held, what else they owned. When they met, there were only three topics.
The machine.
The road.
The speed.
Focused.
Connor had seldom tested his limits in the daytime, much less on a road as public and monitored as the 101. So he kept it to the limit observed by most high-end cars, just under eighty-five, for the first hour. Then he came upon three other racers. Two rode BMWs; the third was a woman on the new Harley racing beast. They exchanged a quick set of hand signals, enough to show that Connor belonged and needed to hurry.
They joined together . . . and they flew north.
Early on, Connor had realized that like the majority of racing bikers, he lacked the fear factor that served as an inhibitor for most people. The only time Connor became afraid was after. When he stepped off the bike, and came to a physical halt, and his heart still had wings, and his mind was perched out there . . . beyond. Only then did he realize how close to the final boundary he had come. It left him feeling exquisitely alive and achingly vulnerable.
At least it had once. Then about five months ago, everything had shifted.
The moment of change had been as definite as the crystal stars and the frigid night that had surrounded him. Connor had stood on top of the cliffs overlooking Rancho Mirage. He had made the solitary climb with his lights off, the silver moonlit asphalt illuminating curves with no guardrail. The ride done, Connor had stood there by his ticking bike and realized that he had not gone looking for a thrill. He had taken the ride without lights, alone, because life no longer held meaning. Live or die, he did not care anymore. The night had become filled with the jarring recognition of how much he had lost. The hollow void at the core of his being had grown so vast it threatened to consume him totally. He had ridden slowly back to LA, parked in the garage, pulled on the dustcover, and had not touched his bike since.
