by John Fusco
Kwan didn’t answer for a time. He looked gaunt and weary, like he had aged ten years over seven weeks of shooting. “We’re one stunt away from having the movie in the can.”
“Then we do it,” Louie said. “I can do it in one take. Fast. Then we go home.”
Kwan went silent again, just stood there, looking out at the lit-up harbor, his Hong Kong crew scurrying about. He nodded, barely.
While the shot was being set up, Louie went over to Rebecca Lo’s trailer and knocked lightly. When she answered the door in her robe, he felt his heart quicken a tick. Barely thirty, she was the most beautiful woman in Hong Kong—and that wasn’t just his estimation; it said so on the cover of several Asian pop culture magazines. There was also a rumor circulating that her face had been insured against injury or sun damage. That’s how beautiful she was. On this night, however, she wore no makeup and appeared fearful, looking past Louie to see if anyone else was lingering in the shadows of honey wagons and portable toilets.
When she let him in, she double-locked the door, turned to him, and said, “You want your white alcohol? Or tea?”
Louie grabbed her and kissed her. She began to resist until she felt his strong arms pull her close, wrap around her. Protect her. He had always been something of her protector and they laughed often about how the world saw her as a “Deadly Beauty of Kung Fu,” when what she really knew was ballet. It was Louie Mo who worked with her, showed her how to turn simple wushu stances or Shaolin animal poses into lethal and threatening expressions. It was all about the eyes, he told her. “Power from the eyes,” he liked to say as he gently coached her lithe and petite frame into position. Her dancer’s lines made it come easy; she was so flexible, she could nail a full split like a gymnast. In three days he had her throwing spinning back kicks that looked devastating, even if they contained none of the authentic internal power of the real gongfu.
“My gongfu is ugly,” she would say, giggling with embarrassment and hiding her mouth behind her little doll-like hand.
“Yes,” Louie would agree. “Very ugly. But your dancing? Beautiful.”
It was after one of those early coaching sessions that they first kissed. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, Louie remembered it as the kiss that finalized his separation from Wife #2, even if his romance with the pop singer/movie star was a one-way street. She liked the thrill of an affair with a tough guy stuntman, but that was the extent of it. If she was going to marry—he knew and she knew—it would be to a producer or a high-paid director like Kwan. Louie was just a bit of rough trade.
Yet, here they were on her sofa in the star wagon, shades down, place lit softly by a night-light. Her robe came away easily and her skin was warm and moisturized, smelling like jasmine and honey butter. Her breasts were perfect and tiny, nipples erect. So was he. She undid his buckle, released him from his jeans. They kissed insanely, made easy love. But Louie held back, refused to climax.
“Can’t give away the jing,” he would explain. His master had taught this to him years ago during his training. Before a fight, before a competition, and especially during the winter months, a man’s essence must be conserved. Intercourse was permitted, and orgasm for the woman was encouraged; this only strengthened the man’s jing. The restraint made Louie edgy, but it bolstered his jing. Four thousand years of Chinese science couldn’t be wrong.
She tried, but couldn’t talk him into a big finish. She had succeeded once, but when he went out to do a crash-through-glass-panel stunt, he was wobbly at the knees and felt strangely complacent, almost as if he had already done the stunt. He had smashed into a wood-and-sugar glass panel and merely splintered it. Being a perfectionist, this upset his world for a time and he swore to never surrender his jing within forty-eight hours of doing a stunt—never again—especially in the winter.
“Don’t hold back,” she whispered in his ear now. Louie rolled off, forced himself back into his jeans, took a sip of the green tea that was steeping on a dresser, and fixed his hair in her mirror. When he looked at her she was in a sultry pose that made him rub his face furiously, almost comically. At the door he lightly banged his head several times to demonstrate his frustration. Yet, there was some kind of pride there, some strange joy in suffering.
“You aren’t doing stunts tonight,” she said. “Come back to me.”
“I am doing stunt,” he said.
“They will break your legs if you do. Don’t be crazy.”
“Already crazy.”
He was tired of this game, he told her. Tired of getting himself mentally prepped for a stunt, only to have the set shut down by these lazy-ass bullies. Maybe he hit a turning point, or that chemical in the brain that produced fear had finally run dry, but the timid look in the eyes of the crew, and Rebecca Lo, sickened him. The first AD told Louie not to worry, there was going to be a protest march, denouncing the Triads. It would wend through the streets of Hong Kong, a parade led by several big Chinese movie stars. Jackie Chan was rumored to participate.
Parade, thought Louie Mo. These criminals extort money from your movie and you respond with a parade? Why not a puppet show? Screw that.
Back outside, on the set, he approached director Kwan with swagger in his catlike step. He flung his cigarette butt to the street, heeled it dead. “Let’s go.”
Thinking about that night now, all these years later, Louie wished he had remained in Rebecca Lo’s trailer and surrendered his jing. Drank some white alcohol, laid back on the sofa, telling her stories about his early days.
Of all the dangerous gags in his long, almost storied career, that one on the harbor, the “Burning Boat,” would prove the most costly.
• • •
Zoe lay on her side, the curve of her big Eurasian hip buttered in moon glow. She studied Troy as he lay there, eyes on the ceiling, hair a sweat-drenched mess of ringlets. Not that they’d had sex. He had tried to touch her, but she wouldn’t permit it; she wasn’t that kind of girl, she told Troy, even as she lay naked beside him. She just wanted him to weigh the possibilities in the event he decided to invest more in her character.
“My father really likes you,” she said. “He really thinks you’re the next Tarantino.”
“Your father’s a passionate guy,” Troy said, keeping his eyes off her. “I like how he puts his heart into projects that some people would just phone in, just for the money.”
“You’d never do that, right? Too much of an artist. An auteur.”
Troy got quiet, couldn’t look at her. “I find my entry code on everything I do.”
“What is it on Slash?”
“Zombie movies have a pedigree going back to German expressionist horror.”
“Bullshit.”
“What?”
“You hate this movie. I know you do. I saw it from day one; you looked like you’d rather be shooting Real Housewives of Topanga Canyon.”
“Listen, I think with a nonlinear structure—”
“Come on, Troy. It wasn’t your idea. You didn’t write it.”
She sat up now, reached for her dress. “It was my father’s idea and it was a Go movie; you were impulsive.”
“Maybe.”
“Now you’re stuck. And you only have three weeks.”
“So you have to get naked and lie on my bed to have this conversation?”
“This is my house. I can get naked and lie on any bed and have any conversation I want.”
“Like the time you came off the beach and did yoga in front of the TV while we were trying to watch the Super Bowl?”
“I just think there’s some business shit you should know about. My father can’t say it, he’s got too much pride.”
Troy could tell by her lifted ankles that she was now doing ab exercises, with a kind of subtle compulsion, right there beside him. “My dad didn’t do so well with Low Tide. That was three straight-to-DVD flicks in a ye
ar. After that, no one would touch him. Couldn’t get arrested.”
“He’s got a lot riding on this one, I know.”
“More than that, Troy. He couldn’t get any investors behind this one.”
“He used his own money?”
“Worse.”
“What’s worse than using your own money?”
“Using Ortega Garza’s money.”
“Who the fuck is Ortega Garza?”
“He’s from Guatemala.”
“The foreign investor, okay, right.”
“Then there’s the white hip-hop guys from Alhambra. Invested company money if my father uses their soundtrack.”
“I hate that soundtrack.”
“Me too. And these two Albanian brothers from the east coast always wanted to see their name in the credits.”
“So you’re saying—”
“I’m saying that if you don’t turn in a movie on a shoestring that looks like twenty million, my father could get hurt. Big-time.”
“And why don’t you think I’ll come through?”
He looked at her as she wriggled back into her impossibly small mocha number and fished for the zipper.
“Because I saw your film from Austin. I saw the passion. You’re better than this shit, and there’s the chance you just might say, ‘Damn the torpedoes, I’m going for broke.’”
Troy propped himself up on pillows, watching Zoe zip her dress hard. For a chick who Durbin deemed vapid, Avi’s daughter had uncanny intuition. She seemed to know that Troy wasn’t sitting up late at night working on Slash. So it all seemed merely a head game when she asked the question, “When do we shoot my new scene?”
“I need to polish it.”
“Then get back to it, Troy Boy. Nine-millimeter. I blow her ginger tits off.”
“So that’s how you kill a zombie,” Troy said.
She slipped out quietly, as if not to disturb the Asian houseguest, then she edged back in with a closing thought. “Maybe you just found your entry code.”
Troy looked out at the moon over the choppy surf and let a breath escape in taut increments. There was that asthma thing again, as thick as the perfume scent in his sheets. It was like she’d marked the property, like she wanted any girl he slept with to know she held rank and first right of refusal.
“Did you just threaten me?” He was chasing her now, but the house was empty and her keys were gone from the counter.
11
HAPPY HOUR
“Patrón silver, on the rocks, squeeze of lime,” Banazak said, sitting at the empty bar at the Marina del Rey Hotel. Then he realized, as his eyes adjusted to the dark, that it wasn’t entirely empty. A woman sat at the far end. A Marina divorcée from the ’80s, he figured; a holdout, still single, same big hair, but now sun-leathered, gin-numb, and staring at the TV. She glanced hungrily at his muscles on occasion, but he kept his eyes on the bar mirror so he could see who might come in.
Carlos, the barman, had just set down his tequila when he caught sight of Papagallo’s reflection. In his bright Hawaiian shirt and hustler’s walk, you couldn’t miss the guy. He waved, took a seat at the far corner table, and pulled a wafer-thin laptop from his bag. “Sit over here near me, big guy,” Papagallo said, turning the computer on. He ordered the same drink as Banazak before even figuring out what it was. Banazak moved a chair like it was made of paper, turned it backward, and sat with his big arms hanging over the backrest. “What you find?”
“You already saw the security tape from Palm Springs, the Chinese guy in the hotel. Had the football.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“I got the tape from outside, in the parking lot. Here you go.”
Papagallo ran the clip: the little Chinese guy with framed jersey and football, hurrying the stuff into the backseat of a Chevy, shutting the door, looking all around. He got into the passenger seat and the Chevy skid out. “There’s the plate, see?”
“You track it?”
“Yeah. Registered to an old car that was sold to a junkyard in the valley, then crushed. It’s a dead plate, dummy plate.”
Banazak drummed his fingers on the chair rest, staring at the frozen image of the car. “How do we find them?”
“I know you don’t want a shit storm, you know, all that other stuff to come up with these chicks looking for money. I can put the word out on the street. LAPD will put it on their watch. If we spot the car, I’ll call you.”
Banazak downed the silver tequila, crushed some ice and lime in his molars. “When I kill this chink, wouldn’t it be ironic if his body goes in a trunk to the same junkyard where he got the dummy plate?”
“You don’t want to do that, Jay,” Papagallo said, almost fatherly.
“Yes, I do,” Banazak said.
Papagallo looked into the big man’s eyes and saw that he meant it. Something wasn’t right, somewhere in the former Raider’s head. Too many concussions, too many growth hormones, too many nights of snorting blow on the boat on Bali Way. It was like he almost forgot about the football; he couldn’t even sleep anymore, from that need to kill the Chinese thief he’d slugged it out with on the rooftops of Monterey Park. He felt eyes in the back of his neck; he snapped his head around. The big-haired woman was staring at him, her eyes at half-mast.
“Cougar,” Banazak said to the detective.
“Yeah, right,” Papagallo said, finishing his tequila. “From the La Brea Tar Pits.”
12
THE CAGE
INT. NUMBER 9 BAR—NIGHT
CHO looks up at the clock, it reads: 9:10. BUZZ sets a plate of hot food before him. Cho can’t seem to identify it.
BUZZ
For you, my friend, a Chinese twist on the French classic coq au vin. The Number 9 is known for its Asian fusion. Best in L.A.
Cho nods in appreciation. Buzz watches him taste it.
BUZZ (CONT’D)
Fucking Uncle Johnny, man . . .
As Cho chews, he tries to read Buzz’s point.
BUZZ (MORE)
He always talked out both sides of his ass. He finally burn you one too many times, or what?
CHO
I’m done. That’s all. Can’t fight above ground, and I don’t want to work their game anymore.
BUZZ
No money?
CHO
They make money. But they won’t make any more off me.
BUZZ
What kind of stakes does Uncle Johnny raise these days? What kind of purse?
Cho gets quiet, searches for the best way to couch it.
CHO
How much is a human life worth?
CHO (CONT’D)
These fights only end one way. Some people pay big bucks to see it.
Buzz is either disturbed or intrigued or both when—
MONEY (O.S.)
Yo, I want to buy a beer for that man . . .
MONEY, a Thai kid, is anchored down the bar, paying for his beer with a sweaty fold of cash.
MONEY (CONT’D)
’Cause I think I know who he is.
CHO
You know this guy?
Buzz nods, smirks.
BUZZ
I’ll get rid of him.
CHO
Don’t start a scene.
Buzz moves down to the loud Thai kid.
BUZZ
What’s up, Money?
MONEY
I want to buy a beer for Mr. Lightning Fist down there.
BUZZ
This is a night where I don’t want any trouble in my place. Come back tomorrow.
Money ignores the owner and backs away from the bar to create some space. He stares at Cho’s back; Cho watches him calmly in the bar mirror.
MONEY
You talk for yourself, Lightning Fist? Or
you let a Gwailo do your talking? I said I want to buy you a beer.
CHO
Thanks, man. I had my drink. You go sit down and have one.
MONEY
You telling me to sit down? What are you, my school teacher?
CHO
If I was your school teacher, I’d take a ruler to your ass, punk.
Money’s eyes go infernal.
CHO
Go sit down.
Money unzips his jacket, shifts his weight onto his back foot. The CROWD senses trouble, goes quiet.
MONEY
Turn around, champ.
Weary-eyed, Cho turns around and eyes the kid.
MONEY (CONT’D)
There’s a smoker across the river. Either we go there and do it, or we do it right here.
CHO
Do what?
MONEY
Funny man, huh? You ever hear the name Money? Thirty-one fights,
MONEY (MORE)
all knockouts. I want you to be number thirty-two.
CHO
I don’t want to be number thirty-two. I want to sit here and listen to the music and eat this Chinese twist on a French classic. So go sit down and stop making trouble.
(MARGIN NOTE: Too much English dialogue for Louie. Just say “Go sit down.”)
Money nods. Not in acceptance, but as if to say, “Okay, this can only end one way, so here we go.” He turns around to scout the corners and calculate distance . . . he casts off his jacket.
And then he WHEELS INTO AN ATTACK that is so fast it has to impress Cho.
Cho meets the attack with a 180-degree SPINNING KICK that sends Money CRASHING through tables and breaking a mirror. WOMEN SCREAM, people begin to clear . . .
• • •
Cheers filled Dog House as Troy ran the scene on his big monitor. Malone, T-Rich, Durbin, and Louie were all grouped behind him, drinking Coronas. “Now, just wait,” Troy said.
They did.
Then the music started. Hard, driving metal triggered a flurry of images across the screen: Louie Mo rolling across the hood of the Chevy, landing and firing a barrage of chain punches, then rolling back onto the hood and executing a backflip.
