Heartland

by Davis Bunn

  “Filmbox and Movietime.”

  Allerby knew what that meant. Both had refused to even take a meeting with Watts or his team. Watts said, “They’ll slap you with the eighteen rating and slot you in after midnight.”

  “That’s why they invented TIVO,” Allerby replied. “Think for a second, Murphy. We’re not talking about just another soft porn. We’re talking about selling innocence. Think of what a young actress would do for the chance to go from nothing to actually starring in a feature.”

  “A feature about skin,” Watts corrected.

  “Reality shows are already as close to peddling flesh as the watchdogs permit,” Allerby replied. “We’re taking it to the next level, and we’re doing it on a major cable network.”

  “Where’s your other money coming from?”

  Allerby knew Watts expected him not to say. Which made it even sweeter. “Harry Solish.”

  “He know you’re talking with me?”

  “Of course not.”

  Watts actually smiled. “Let me guess. You’ve promised Solish you’ll keep doing the same old schtick. Then you’ll bring me in. And even though you’ll have just a minority stake, you’ll actually control the studio, because your two principal investors hate each other with a dedicated passion.”

  “And we’re going to make a killing,” Milo said.

  Watts rose from the table and walked to the railing. He said to the night and the shadows of eucalyptus trees, “Yeah, you probably will.”

  Wexlar looked up a second time. Straight into Allerby’s face. Allerby nodded. Once.

  The deal was as good as done.

  Chapter 19

  The Nguyens’ farewells were a bittersweet moment, and followed an argument that had lasted through dinner and into the evening, then restarted over breakfast.

  Though argument was hardly a word that fit their soft voices and exquisite politeness. They merely gave voice to their concerns. Over and over and over. How JayJay could not possibly think their young son deserved such a gift. No, no, please do not call this work. Ahn has no experience, and he dreams of entering the movie business, and you give him this wonderful opportunity, he should pay you. How could we accept your money and remain honorable people? We would be insulting you, and be dishonorable to our God. And of course such a fine gentleman as yourself would not seek to cause us such distress.

  Like that.

  Ahn said almost nothing. He simply watched. Minh also. They both translated occasionally when the English words escaped their parents. But that was all. The hard-nosed jester who had held up the president of Centurion Studios was gone. Which JayJay found intensely moving, how this kid would show his parents such deep respect. Which left JayJay arguing more fiercely, since he was standing up not for himself, but this kid.

  The one bad moment came two hours after dinner, when they had halted and asked if JayJay would join them for an episode of Heartland. Ahn reminded them that it had starred the other guy, which was the one point where MahMah became voluble, showing her disgust with a queenly drop of her hand.

  JayJay viewed the episode with nightmarish dread. There upon the screen was a rerun of his own life, starring a man who slurred his words and kept his gut in place with lycra. This fake used JayJay’s truck to wrangle up a herd of young calves in a lightning storm. He remembered the time. During the commercials JayJay wiped his face and studied the sheen on his hands. The family saw his distress, but said nothing when JayJay excused himself and went to bed.

  His night was one long tumbling dream of whirlwinds and plagues and evil bankers, and he couldn’t say for certain whether the nighttime images were more real than what he called his own past.

  The next morning, when the parents started back in on Ahn’s payment, JayJay found himself unwilling to hear more of the same. “Look here. We’re not either one of us budging. It’s time we moved on.”

  “But Mr. JayJay, if you will just listen—”

  “I done heard you five times already, Mrs. Nguyen. I don’t mean any disrespect, ma’am. But I tell you what’s the truth. I’m headed out this door to catch a bus. The last time I got on one of them things I fell asleep and landed up in a world that don’t make no sense. But I’m here, at least for now. And your pastor’s words really hit home. He told me to do the best with what God’s put here before me. And I’m starting with you folks.”

  From the way their foreheads scrunched up, JayJay knew they hadn’t understood a lot of what he’d just said. And it didn’t matter. “So this is what’s happening. Ahn is keeping the money.”

  “But Mr. JayJay—”

  “No, now excuse me. But it’s your turn to listen up. Okay. The money is your son’s. If accepting it disrespects you, give it to the church. Or take it out back and heap it in a pile and burn it all. That’s your choice. But I’m not taking it back. What I’d suggest, though, is you treat it as a gift. Ahn is headed off for more schooling, right? So you’ve been nice to a stranger. You’ve taken him in and fed him and clothed him and given him a roof over his head—”

  “You are not a stranger. And you saved our children’s lives.”

  “I was a stranger then, ma’am. And please let me finish. So this money is Ahn’s. I’d call it a college fund and let it go as that. But here’s the thing. I need your son. I want him to keep working for me whenever something comes up with them folks over at the studio. So what I want to know is, what am I going to pay him next time?”

  “No pay,” Mr. Nguyen protested. “No more.”

  “Sorry, sir, but that ain’t happening. I’ve paid my way since Pappy died and I got stuck with the ranch, and that’s the way it’s going to stay. Ahn is working for me unless you tell me otherwise, and I’m gonna pay him.” JayJay folded his arms. “Y’all want to see stubborn, you try and tell me different.”

  They had settled on half what Ahn said a Hollywood lawyer received. Four hundred dollars an hour. The sum clogged up Mrs. Nguyen’s tongue and bulged her husband’s eyes a bit. But Ahn got down a book and showed them a page, and they looked at each other and shook their heads but said nothing more. Except for one thing. JayJay had to promise that he would treat their home as his own, whenever he was in the area.

  He left for the studio feeling like he had escaped the battlefield singed but not badly wounded.

  Ahn drove JayJay to the studio in the family car. Hardy waved them through the gate with a two-handed slugger’s swing. Ahn stopped in front of where a crowd boarded a bus. Clara stood by a limo smoking and squinting at JayJay sitting there in the tight little sedan. Ahn’s voice carried the same glazed state as his eyes. “I can’t thank you enough. I ought to say it better, but I can’t.”

  “You don’t need to say a thing. I’ve been poor before. I know what it means to find myself looking at a pile of cabbage with my name on it.”

  Ahn looked at him. “Not just the money. The trust. The chance.

  ”

  JayJay wanted to reach over and hug him, but he wasn’t sure how the kid would take it. So he made do by punching Ahn’s shoulder and saying, “You just be good and ready for the next time they lay down the bear traps.”

  They wanted JayJay to travel in the limo with Clara and Britt. He was having none of it, which caused Clara to go all snippy about him needing to make time with the hired help. JayJay purposefully chose a seat far away from Kelly, which she seemed to understand, at least enough to cast him an easy smile. Derek, the camera guy, took the seat next to him. Derek fretted and chewed his lip pretty much the entire five-hour journey. JayJay welcomed the silence. Now that he had left the Nguyens’ shelter, the previous night’s television program scrolled across the yellow-desert landscape. JayJay closed his eyes and tried to pray for guidance. But the images just kept rolling inside his brain. That fat old fraud in a girdle hugging JayJay’s sister and then waddling off in JayJay’s boots to drive JayJay’s truck and save JayJay’s cattle.

  He opened his eyes and pretended to study the terrain. Anything was bet
ter than trying to make sense of the desert storm raging inside his head. All dust and turmoil and empty noise.

  The hours rumbled by. The interstate was a dry river of heat. The surrounding vista was yellow rock and scrub and hills of hopeless ardor. Finally they started climbing, passing through one mesa after another. Somebody passed out a box lunch. Derek opened his and studied the contents like he was reading hieroglyphics. JayJay asked, “You want to talk about what’s eating at your craw?”

  “You ever been given what you’ve always wanted and wished you never asked in the first place?” Derek fumbled over shutting his box. “I never knew confusion could feel this bad.”

  JayJay slid his own box under his seat. Sighed back around to stare out the window. “I can’t say I’ve ever started off like you’re saying. But it sure feels like I wound up in the same hole.”

  Derek gave him a shadow of a smile. “You mean being a big star isn’t all bluebirds and buttercups?”

  “When I meet me a star,” JayJay replied, “I’ll be sure and ask him.”

  The hardest moment of all came around the final bend. Worse than losing Minh in the smoke. Worse than coming to buck naked in that little shop of horrors. Worse than the night he’d just finished. Bundle them all together and let them stew, they still wouldn’t compare with how it felt to come around that bend and stare at his old home.

  The hills were there. All his old friends, the ones he’d sat and watched grow from ghostlike to stately in dawn’s gold.

  The stand of cottonwoods growing by the spring.

  The corral where a field hand was releasing his horse with a pat on its rump.

  The fields.

  The front vegetable garden.

  His daddy’s old well.

  The house.

  “Unless you want to head on into town with me, mister, you better get a move on.”

  JayJay wrenched himself away from the sight. “Excuse me?”

  The bus driver pointed his thumb at the open door. “I’m supposed to go drop the personal effects by your hotel.”

  JayJay needed both hands to manage the steps. He stumbled away as the driver wheezed the door shut and rumbled off.

  “Hey, you!”

  JayJay had trouble placing the lady taking long strides toward him. Kelly said, “The crew’s got hours of work and we don’t start rehearsals until tomorrow. What say we go find us a place that knows how to cook real grub?”

  JayJay turned back to the cabin. “I don’t think so.”

  Kelly planted both fists on her hips. “You make a habit of turning down the best thing going?”

  JayJay pointed at the cabin. “That ain’t real.”

  “Doesn’t need to be, since we do all the interior work back on the soundstage. Remember?” When JayJay did not respond, she closed the distance between them. “Hey, look at me a minute. You remember how you came over that first day on the set? Did you have any idea how scared I was?”

  “Gladys told me. Or Hilda. I can’t recall which is which.”

  “Remind me to thank them both. Truth is, I was about ready to bolt. Then this handsome fellow came over, first one I’d met in Hollywood who didn’t treat me like I was ice cream on a stick. I don’t remember exactly what it was you said to me. But I know how good it felt, just making a new friend in all that strangeness.”

  “Is any of this real?” JayJay’s voice cracked under the strain of voicing very real fears. “Am I?”

  “I can’t speak for this place or this work.” Her voice changed then. It was a womanly thing, how she dropped the hard shell and showed him who she was underneath. “But you’re just about the strongest dose of real I’ve had since leaving Dakota.”

  She gripped his arm and tugged. “Come on, cowboy. Let’s go see if that limo guy knows how to spell honky-tonk.”

  Chapter 20

  Martin Allerby was crossing the lot and talking into his cell phone when he spotted an unlikely figure up ahead. “Hold on a second, Eddie.” He raised his voice. “Peter, over here if you please.”

  The writer scuttled. Allerby had seen the response a hundred thousand times and still found pleasure in fear on display. Like a film scene so well plotted and choreographed he could run it every day and never tire of its precision and beauty.

  Allerby pointed to a spot in the concrete at his feet, signifying that Peter should stand and wait. He said to the phone, “No, Eddie. No. I’m sorry, Eddie, talking faster will not change my mind. Now here’s what you do. Go back to your client and remind her that we had seven hundred actors respond to that particular casting call. Wait, I’m not finished. We winnowed this number down to six finalists. Any of which would do fine. We chose your client not because she was the best, but because she fit our criteria. She was peppy, and she was cheap. Do you understand what I mean by the word cheap? Fine. I’ll expect the signed agreement messengered to my office by the day’s close, or I’ll select someone else to fill the role.”

  He snapped the phone shut. The writer’s eyes had glazed over slightly. Hearing the stats always had a chilling effect upon talent. Allerby asked, “What are you doing here?”

  Peter jerked. “Working on the next set of scenes, Mr. Allerby.”

  “I understand that.” He felt the late-afternoon sunlight drill them with the precise force of a close-up lamp. “I meant, what are you doing here. On the lot. And not out with the others on location.”

  “Mr. Allerby . . . my wife?”

  “A charming lady, I’m sure.”

  “Sir, she’s eight months pregnant. With twins.”

  “How very good for you both.”

  “I thought . . . that is, I just assumed . . .”

  Martin watched the writer’s carefully worded arguments fade to dust and blow away. “You are not paid to think. You are paid to complete the script we are already shooting. Am I making myself clear?”

  “There’ve been some complications—”

  “As there always are when you move a half-finished script from discussions to filming.” Martin chose to misunderstand. “Which is why it is essential for you to be out there. Close at hand. Ready to help them with rewrites on a moment’s notice.”

  The protest, though feeble, still emerged. “I could do that from here.”

  “Theoretically. That’s what we’re talking about, isn’t it. Theories. Theoretically your wife might have problems, which may or may not arrive in a day or a week or in six weeks’ time. Theoretically she might need you. At which point you are only four hours away.”

  “More like six.”

  “Fine. Call it twelve if you want. Call it three days. Call it a trek across the Gobi.” Martin slipped the blade a fraction from its sheath. “If that would help you explain to your wife why you have been dropped as principal writer of this series. Do I make myself clear, Caffrey? Excellent. I’m so glad we cleared that up.”

  Allerby kept his smile contained until he entered the soundstage and could aim it at a director with whom he had argued the previous day, confusing the poor woman enormously in the process. Which made the moment even sweeter. Confused talent was talent operating on its toes. Allerby leaned against the side wall and pretended to watch them set up the next scene.

  This really was turning into a splendid day.

  Chapter 21

  JayJay and Kelly stopped by the hotel long enough to check into their rooms and change. The hotel was on the outskirts of Salton City, a nice enough town according to the limo driver, whose name was Gerald and who proved to be not only a font of information but a guy seriously intent on hustling tips. The hotel was family owned, a fifties-style two-story affair that had been done up by the son and his wife. This according to Gerald. The hotel’s exterior walls were flagstone. There was a little central courtyard with a flower garden and pool area. The road-ies got a view of the highway so they’d feel at home, was how Gerald put it as he pulled into the forecourt. JayJay started to make a fuss when he learned he was assigned a suite, but Kelly gave him one o
f those looks, the kind women patented about a thousand years ago that were meant to stop a man dead in his tracks.

  JayJay didn’t have any clothes except his studio gear and what Robbie Robinson’s dad had loaned him. He stopped by for a shower and a couple of circuits around his suite, which wasn’t much bigger than the corral where they were keeping Skye penned. Then he walked back to the conference room behind the lobby, where he’d spotted the two wardrobe ladies sorting through piles of this and that. He knocked on an open door and asked if they had anything besides jeans that might fit him.

  “Oooh, another man who hates to shop.”

  “I’d have an easier time of it,” JayJay replied, “if they could somehow separate the shopping from the bit about spending money.”

  During the fittings, JayJay finally got the ladies straightened out. Gladys was the taller one, Hilda the stockier and more sharply focused. Both women had Coney Island rock-candy exteriors with marshmallow hearts. They dressed him in a Mexican-weave shirt, dun-colored slacks, Tony Lama ostrich-skin boots, and a jacket of suede so soft it brought to mind half-melted butter.

  He stared at the stranger in the mirror and said, “Now we get to the hard part. How much do I owe you?”

  They acted like he’d said something hilarious. Gladys patted him on the arm and said, “You two young people go have yourselves a lovely time.”

  “How’d you know I was going out with Kelly?”

  They both played like he was a comic again. “Honey, when it comes to the stars, there are no secrets on a set.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Kelly chose that moment to show up and say, “I saw you folks through the back window. It looked like such a good time I thought I’d come join in.”

  She wore fawn-colored slacks and high-backed sandals and a sleeveless knit top the color of clouds at sunset. She’d done something with her hair, so it was partly loose and partly slung over one shoulder. And she looked like spun diamonds. That was the thought that sprang to JayJay’s mind. It didn’t make any sense, but he was too hammered by the sight of her to care.