Now that he had saved her from the mad doctor, she didn't know how to treat him or what to think.
"Thank you! Leave me alone," he snapped coldly, and she quickly left, quietly closing the door behind her.
The ring in his hand looked familiar. He had seen it before… a gold band with two snakes entwined. Then he remembered. It had been a gift to him from the head of the studio, when Snake Dancer went over one hundred million in domestic grosses. That was back in the seventies. Now when that happened, they gave you a fucking Mercedes. He hadn't liked the ring. He preferred bigger jewelry with diamond settings, but what the fuck had he done with it? Who could have taken it? Why wasn't it somewhere in the back of his jewelry box?
Then it hit him. He had given the ring to Michael when his son moved into the pool house after being thrown out of Pepperdine. A sort of "welcome home/bury the hatchet" present. He had lied and told Michael he'd had it designed especially for him.
Now, as he sat holding his dead son's ring, the taste of sour chocolate unexpectedly filled his mouth, startling him. He rolled over and hit the intercom.
"Jes?" Consuelo's voice came over the speaker into his bedroom.
"Tell them to wait out by the pool house. No… no, hold it, fuck the pool house, I'm never going in there again. Tell them to wait in the den."
And then Buddy Brazil got out of bed and put on a pair of new black jeans and a black silk shirt, his patented "Outlaw Buddy" attire. He slipped into a pair of custom-made black rhino cowboy boots that gave him an extra three inches in the heel. After inspecting his bloated face in the bathroom mirror, he gargled some Listerine and went downstairs.
There were three of them waiting, not in the den as he'd instructed, but in the living room, which was a mess, filled with shattered glass, empty Coke cans, and police cigarette butts. There was a slender, underweight man with a shaved head, and a rumpled, gray-haired porpoise with a bow tie. Last, but hardly least, a drop-dead gorgeous blonde of exquisite proportions, with aqua-blue eyes and a world-class bumper kit. Buddy focused on her, ignoring the two men. He slipped easily back into his old outlaw persona.
"How may I help you?" he said, trying to sound tired, but heroically resolute, like Alan Ladd after the big gunfight in Shane, his favorite movie, growing up.
"I'm Stacy Richardson. This is Dr. Wendell Kinney and Cris Cunningham," she said.
He looked over at the skinny, bald-headed man. "Cris Cunningham? There used to be a guy with that name who played quarterback for UCLA. They called him Lucky Cunningham 'cause he'd always complete some bullshit Hail Mary pass with seconds left on the clock. A real gamer. Not a bad player for a Bruin. Livin' in L. A., I bet you hear about him a lot," Buddy said, never for a minute suspecting that this underweight, bald, unhealthy-looking character in front of him was, in fact, that same man.
"Yeah," Cris said, "now and again." And that was all he said, so Stacy let it go.
"Sir, we've come to ask you a few questions about your son."
Again, it was the beautiful blonde doing the talking. Buddy would have truly liked to fuck her, but he hadn't had sex with a non-pro in almost five years. Now that Heidi Fleiss was out of the business and standing trial again, he was just using the few remnants from her old stable, who were still flat-backing around Hollywood. He preferred hookers. He had always been afraid of rejection. Prostitutes never rejected you. If you pre-ejaculated, or couldn't sustain an erection because of drugs, or whatever, they never said anything. Hookers always made you feel like your tool was a diamond cutter and you were the blue-vein prince of the city. He looked at this girl and desired her, but knew he would posture and strut, then probably never get up the nerve to take a cut at her.
"First, maybe you should tell me where you got this ring," Buddy said, holding it up between his thumb and forefinger.
"I got it off Mike when he died," the underweight young man said.
Buddy moved farther into the room, coming closer. He could see now that Cris Cunningham was surprisingly tall, at least six-three. Even in his custom boots, Buddy was a few inches shorter. "Why don't we go in here," he said, leading them into the den, which contained all of his showbiz trophies and pictures of him with celebrities, including shots with three different U. S. Presidents. "I'm sort of played out, so if we can make it fast," he said, going for a heroic pose by the bar, making it sound like his fabulous gunfight was nothing to really talk about, but maybe had tired him slightly.
"Sir," the beautiful blonde said.
"Buddy," he corrected her.
She rewarded him with a smile and went on, "Mr. Cunningham was with your son for several weeks just before he died…"
"And where was that? I heard he was hoboing up in Texas, for God's sake. Why Mike would be riding the rails, hanging with a buncha bums, sure beats the shit outta me."
"He was searching for himself," the tall, head-shaved man said. Buddy showed him to a seat on the sofa, while taking a high stool by the bar for himself. Buddy never let his head be lower than another alpha male's if they were both in the vicinity of prime pussy. From this angle, Buddy could now see a stitched wound in the back of the man's head.
"He was riding trains," Buddy said. "How do you look for yourself doing that?"
"I hoboed with him. We rode the SP line all across Texas. We had long talks about what he wanted. To tell you the truth, Mr. Brazil, he was lonely and confused, and didn't think anybody loved him. He was looking for a father, and I told him he should give you another chance. I took his ring after he died."
"You mean you stole his ring," Buddy snapped, angry that this stranger had asserted himself into his nonexistent relationship with Mike.
"No sir," Cris said. "I just gave it back a minute ago, but if I hadn't saved it for you, some railroad brakeman would have it now."
Mike was lonely, he didn't think anybody loved himLike father, like son. "You said you wanted to ask some questions. What do you need to know?" Buddy asked the blond woman.
"Was your son Jewish?"
Buddy first looked annoyed, then amused. Then he had no expression at all, as he leaned his elbows on the bar, and went for some Jack Nicholson cool. "How the hell is that any of your business, lady?" he said slowly, immediately regretting the remark because it made him sound like he was hiding something. He seemed to be having trouble staying in character. The Buddy Brazil outlaw thing he'd perfected over the years was suddenly wavering badly.
"I assume the doctors at the morgue explained the unusual conditions surrounding your son's death," Wendell said. "I'm sure they explained their suspicions about the reason somebody stole Mike's body."
Buddy nodded. Dr. Welsh had said to him that they feared his son had been infected by some rare bio-weapon that had gotten loose, and that somebody, maybe even a foreign government, had stolen Mike's body to get a sample of it. He'd been sworn to secrecy. They didn't want that on the news.
"I think that the weapon he was exposed to might have been designed to only attack people of Jewish origin," Stacy said. "So far, in almost every case we have confirmed, the victim was Jewish. Troy Lee Williams, who died from an illegal test of the weapon, was adopted. His natural parents were Jewish. Dr. Saunders, the retired dentist; your friend Dr. Iverson; the man who crashed his helicopter at Vanishing Lake, Captain Abrams-all Jewish. Only Sylvester Swift, an African-American who was transferred up there, wasn't Jewish. That still puzzles me. I've been giving a lot of thought to the fact that this is a protein bio-weapon. I've been reading up on it, and Wendell and I think it may be possible for a protein to genetically target an ethnic-specific section of a genome."
"Do what?" Buddy asked.
"If Dr. DeMille had attempted to use the protein markers that are in all human blood, I think it's very possible to target specific genetic groups. Blacks, for instance, are the only group to get sickle-cell anemia. Only Ashkenazi Jews get Tay-Sachs disease. This is because each genetic group has its own unique DNA, with its own specific protein markers. Prions could b
e engineered to attack only one set of genetic DNA markers. When you think about it, it makes both scientific and tactical military senseIf we were at war with the Arabs, or the Chinese, it would be devastatingly efficient to infect only that genetic enemy."
Buddy was starting to panic. "Is this shit contagious?" he shrieked, losing his Nicholson drawl.
"It can be passed, but it needs to be transmitted by ingestion, direct blood transfer, or mosquito bites. It's not a virus, so it's not very contagious. I wouldn't be too concerned," she said.
Now Buddy was wondering if he'd touched Iverson after he'd blown half his head off. Shit! Had he stood in the blood with bare feet? He barely remembered any of it. He'd been in emotional shock for an hour after the shooting.
"Was Mike Jewish?" Stacy asked again.
"Yes," Buddy stammered. "My name is… it used to be Peter Olenchuck."
"Polish?" she asked.
Buddy winced. "Yeah, it's fucking Polish. What about it?" he snapped, and again immediately regretted it, because she looked startled and hurt.
"Look, Miss… what was it…?"
"Richardson. And it's Mrs.," she said.
Now Buddy winced inwardly. She was married.
It was news to Cris as well.
"Mrs. Richardson," Buddy continued, "I'm very sorry. It's been a while since I killed anyone. I guess I'm a little outta practice." At last, a good delivery. He had put just the right amount of tired distress into the reading.
"I understand," she said. "And Michael's mother, was she Jewish?"
"With a name like Tova?" Buddy smiled ruefully. "Tova was one of the great Eastern European Jewish Princesses. She was Tova Rosen, and before you think we're all running around Hollywood changing our names to deny our heritage, this is a billboard society we're in out here. Olenchuck. I didn't want to go around town dragging that Polish piano behind me."
"It's okay," she said softly.
Again he felt stupid. He'd overreacted. He was all over the road.
"Mr. Brazil, I think you should get your blood checked immediately. It's just a precaution, to be on the safe side. Not that I think you have anything to worry about."
Then the chocolate bread thing was back in his mouth, tinny and gross. He wanted to turn and spit into his bar sink, but he restrained himself.
"And just what are you people going to do?" he asked.
"We've decided to go back to Vanishing Lake," Cris Cunningham said. "We want to find out what really happened up there. Stacy thinks we should look at the prison. See if we can find anything they missed when they pulled out. Wendell is going to stay here and work on the science in case we turn up something."
"Vanishing Lake? Where the big fire was?" he said, remembering it from the news.
"It's where your son was infected," Stacy said.
"Isn't that dangerous, going up there?" Buddy asked. "If there's been a bio-weapon outbreak?"
"The government says that all infestation has been contained. They've even reopened the highways," Stacy said.
"I hope they're right," Buddy said. Then, apropos of nothing, he added, "Will your husband be going?" Buddy smiled, trying for some of the old Brazil bullshit, but missing by a mile. Without even looking in the bar mirror, he knew that his smile was lecherous. He had never felt more awkward.
"My husband is dead," she finally said softly. "He was murdered by the people at Fort Detrick, Maryland. They said he committed suicide, but they murdered him because he found out what they were doing."
So Maximilian Richardson was her husband, Cris thought, and he was murdered because he stumbled onto this.
"They killed Mr. Cunningham's four-year-old daughter, with U. S. Government-manufactured pyridostigmine, part of a chemical weapons cocktail used by Iraq in the Gulf War, and brought home inside some of our soldiers," Stacy went on. "And now they've killed your only son. We're not going to quit till we prove they were all murdered."
Buddy Brazil suddenly felt a range of new, different emotions sweeping over him. In his car on the way to the morgue he had wanted to cry, or have some reaction to Mike's passing, but he couldn't. Then in his dream, when Mike was falling, he knew he had lost something very important, and had cried in his sleep, although that had just been a slice of his subconscious. Now he felt guilt, overwhelming Jewish guilt, and burning, unreasoning anger.
He also knew he couldn't live with himself as a coward. He would rather die than carry that around with him. His self-loathing was swamped by his cowardice. He had denied Michael at birth, and accepted him only at DNA gunpoint. Now he felt crushed by Mike's loss.
"There's a hospital a mile from here. Let's go get my blood checked," he said softly. "And then if you want, I'll go with you. We can use my private jet."
It was the first sentence he had uttered since they arrived that felt right. The taste of stale bread was no longer in his mouth.
Chapter 26
RETURN TO VANISHING LAKE
It's a good thing I've got bank credit," Buddy Brazil muttered to himself, as he threw the Writers Guild credit arbitration finding aside. "If I had to depend on screen credit, I'd go broke." He'd put in for "written by" after doing a pencil revision on the last draft of a western he was producing called Trail of Tears, but the Arbitration Committee at the Writers Guild had denied it. He flipped the rest of the mail he'd brought with him onto the tray table and looked out the window of his Gulfstream III.
They were still climbing, just leaving the flight pattern at Van Nuys Airport, and he could see the San Gabriel Mountains falling away under the left wing. It was a typical smoggy L. A. day, and everything looked tiny and brown down there; a miniature town through a number six light filter. He turned away from the window. The tall man with the stitched-up head and the quarterback's name was sitting on the plush sofa. He was looking at the expensive seat controls in the Gulfstream, like an indigent trying to pick the right dinner fork at a five-star restaurant. Buddy loved the magnificent jet. The burlwood was varnished and glistening; there were three video screens, a full bar and galley, and a gorgeous uniformed stewardess named Carmen DeLuca, who was one of Heidi's ex-hookers. Carmen had hit the lockup for her third prostitution bust last May and had decided to retire from high-roller sport fucking. He'd given her a job on his new G-III, which he had just painted black, with the word "Outlaw" scripted on the tail.
Buddy got up and moved forward as Stacy Richardson came out of the forward bathroom and joined Cris Cunningham on the sofa. Even in his cowboy boots, Buddy could stand up in the plane without ducking his head. The Gulfstream had a six-foot-high cabin, so Cris Cunningham was too tall to accomplish that feat. It pissed Buddy off.
"Let me show you something," Buddy said. He took a gold key from his pocket and unlocked a cabinet forward of the galley, pulling out a Colt Python with a Tasco dot scope affixed to its three-inch barrel. He flipped the sight on and spun the pistol like a gunfighter in a bad western.
"Jesus, take it easy," Cris said. "Is it loaded?"
"Fucking A," Buddy said, still waving the gun around, sighting the dot on several things in the cabin. "This is an O. E. G. That stands for-"
"Occluded Eye Gunsight," Cris said. "Kick the thing open and drop the loads out, will you?" He was looking at the gun like a man who had been on the serious end of more than one firearm.
"Don't be alarmed, Cris. I know what I'm doing." Buddy was on familiar ground. He would often wave loaded guns around to scare the shit out of someone and establish his alpha-male superiority.
"If you knew what you were doing, Buddy, you wouldn't be handling a loaded gun like that," Cris said, feeling a familiar knot in his stomach.
"I can understand why you're a little nervous," Buddy said, holding the gun carelessly pointed at Cris, "but I'm a certified sharpshooter… an expert. You're in no immediate danger," and he pulled the hammer back.
Cris moved as fast as he could. He came up off the sofa, grabbed Buddy's wrist, and twisted it to the left, immediately pulling his finger
off the trigger. Cris simultaneously pivoted in the jet's cabin, turning inside of Buddy's outstretched right arm, yanking it upward, and miraculously coming away with Buddy's Colt Python. It was a move he'd learned in Special Forces Recon. He used to be able to do it so fast you almost couldn't see it. Now, with his reflexes shot, the move felt clumsy and dangerous. If Buddy had been for real, or had known what he was doing, Cris would have been dead. He snapped the sight off, then kicked the round wheel open, dumping all six magnum loads in his hand.
"Full Metal Jackets," Cris said softly. "What're you hunting with these, rhinos?" He dropped the six FMJs into his pocket, then handed the empty revolver back to Buddy. Cris's legs were shaking. He was amazed that a combat move he'd once been so good at he could now only perform at half speed. What am I doing? he thought. I don't belong here. I'm going to get us all killed.
"Jesus Christ, how'd you do that? One second I had the fucking gun, next you did." Buddy was impressed by any macho feat that he couldn't duplicate. So, while Cris was cursing his sad performance, Buddy was putting him a few notches higher on the alpha-male testosterone chart.
"Cris was a Delta Ranger. He won the Silver Star," Stacy said.
Buddy looked over at her. "That's not hard to believe. I never saw anything on two feet move so fast," Buddy gushed, notching Cris up even higher. "Let me show you something else." Buddy returned to the unlocked cabinet and pulled out another loaded pistol. It was a customized Beretta. He handled this one more carefully as he showed it to Cris.
Stacy thought they looked like little boys comparing toys.
"Know what this is?" Buddy asked.
"A nine-by-nineteen NATO Beretta selective-fire 93^," Cris said. "You got the stock?"
"Sure do." Buddy grinned. "You really know your guns." He reached in and pulled out a hand-carved wood stock that could be attached to the piece, turning it into a nine-millimeter carbine.
Cris's stomach was turning sour. He desperately wanted a drink. Higher power, he thought. Serve vengeance. Get justice for what they did to Kennidi.
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