by Ian Bull
“She’s lost it,” I say.
“Can you blame her? Two people close to her were killed.”
“Boss Man’s people say she’s got friends helping her. She’ll get through it.”
“What’s she been doing?” Tina asks.
“Her friend from Canada is staying with her, and her agent stops by. She’s also got a new bodyguard, some black dude who drives a BMW. She’s overwhelmed, though.”
“Good,” Tina says.
The lights of the West Coast are a hazy glow on the horizon, like a distant galaxy whose individual stars you can’t see yet. The hike will be nice tomorrow. Sex is crucial. Once work starts, sex may be impossible. I look at Tina’s profile—her long, aquiline nose, her perfect breasts in her shirt, and her dark, curly hair spilling down. She turns, catching me gazing at her.
“Should I bring a blanket on Tuesday morning for our hike?” I whisper in her ear.
“Yes,” she says. “Bring a blanket. You won’t regret it.”
Chapter 27
* * *
Steven Quintana
Day 9: Sunday Night
Approaching SFO
My right arm falling asleep wakes me up. Most people can’t sleep on an airplane, but if I have a window seat and a pillow to lean against, I sure can. The vibrations are at the perfect frequency to induce narcolepsy. I lift the blanket off my head. Walter watches the latest Marvel spandex superhero movie on his monitor.
“How long have I been out?”
“Eight hours,” Walter says. “You missed two meals, dude. I sent mine back, too. After that Hong Kong feast, there’s no way I was going to sully its memory with some bullshit microwaved pasta primavera.”
That feast had been incredible, all of it on a picnic table in front of the panda exhibit at Ocean Park. Walter was moaning like he was eating his dead grandma’s homemade apple pie.
“What are snow clams and papaya anyway?” I ask. “They were weird.”
“Snow clams are the fallopian tubes of frogs.”
“Stop,” I say, holding up my hand. “What about customs getting back into the States?”
“We just have to pick the right customs window. One with a cousin.”
“You guys are everywhere,” I say.
“So are the Masons,” he says, his eyes glued to the final battle on the screen.
“How will it go down, do you think?” I ask.
The movie finally ends and Walter looks up. “Huh? How will what go down?”
“Ming said it would happen this Saturday.”
“Chu will let me know when Ming leaves prison, and I will let you know. Considering that cement dock is so close to the prison, they’ll probably take him away by yacht.”
“To where? I wish Chu had told me more.”
Walter shakes his head. “He’ll probably never know. If the bad guys are smart, they’ll just put Ming on the yacht and surprise him. But you will get a phone call when Ming leaves.”
I know the identity of one cast member, and I know when this game, whatever it is, will happen. Maybe Julia will have more info when I see her tomorrow.
“Dude, I have to be in Orinda for work tomorrow. I can’t drive you to L.A., and you can’t get on a domestic flight. You have to stay on the down low, especially in Los Angeles.”
“I’ll take Greyhound. I don’t have to be in Los Angeles until eleven.” My bladder announces itself and I unbuckle. “Gotta go.”
I find the lavatory, do my business, and look at myself in the mirror while washing up. My face and hair are a mess. A week ago I was in a tuxedo, looking as sharp as Clooney. Now, I look like I was beat up and left by the side of the road. I was so mad at her three days ago, and now I’m worried about how I look for when I see her.
The pilot comes over the loudspeaker. “We’ve begun our descent into San Francisco, which will put us at the gate at seven p.m. Those with connecting flights must go through customs in San Francisco. I also wanted to let people know that Naomi Watts won the Academy Award for best supporting actress, and Jude Law for best supporting actor, but that’s all the news we have for you right now.”
Julia was supposed to be there tonight, but I ruined everything. I flash back to an image of her pulling her head through her sweatshirt and running her hands through her hair, smiling at me with no makeup on. That’s when she’s the prettiest—a version of her that no sees but me.
Maybe we can salvage what we had. She told me to come back to Los Angeles, and I am.
Opening the lavatory door, I almost bump chests with a woman with long, curly black hair. We make eye contact, and then she stares at the Cadillac logo on my shirt. We both mutter “Excuse me” as we pass, then I walk back down the aisle. I don’t turn to see if she’s watching.
“You look like you just saw a ghost,” Walter says, shifting so I can pass him.
“Some woman just looked at me,” I say, sitting down.
“Cover up, we need you dead.” He tosses my blanket back over my head.
Chapter 28
* * *
Julia Travers
Day 10: Monday Morning
Malibu, California
Dirty dishes and empty ice cream cartons cover the coffee table, the detritus from our personal Oscar viewing party. I slide open the glass doors to the deck and let the sun and cool air stream into the living room. It’s a beautiful March morning in Malibu, with clean white clouds stretching across a blue sky over a silver ocean that starts at the balcony railing. Those clouds better wait to dump the rain until this afternoon. I must meet Steven first, at the top of Latigo Canyon, where we had our first date—a hike in the green Santa Monica Mountains above Malibu. The anticipation makes me bounce on my toes.
“I packed you some water and snacks,” Trishelle says. She comes out of the kitchen, holding up a tiny purple daypack for me—but then freezes.
“You want me to close this?” I say, gesturing toward the open balcony and view.
She nods, unable to move, her leg muscles quivering in her sweatpants. Big spaces make her nervous, and nothing’s bigger than the Pacific Ocean just outside your window. I slide the glass doors shut and pull the drapes closed again, sinking the room back into a gray zone.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I want to help.”
“You are helping. We’ll get through this,” I whisper back.
My cellphone rings on the coffee table and Trishelle scoops it up and answers for me, trying her best to sound strong. “Good morning, Paul,” she says, glancing at me to see if I want to take the call. I nod. “Yes, here she is.”
“Good morning, I hope you have good news for me,” I say.
“We have a breakfast meeting at the agency with Le Clerq and his lawyer tomorrow morning at seven,” Paul says. “I’ll pick you up five-thirty and we can prep on the way in. David and Saul will be there. I just hope Le Clerq doesn’t end up costing you too much.”
“Whatever it costs, it’s my own fault. Thank you, Paul,” I say, and hang up. Steven’s coming home, and I would have paid a billion dollars for that.
Major Glenn Ward rings at the outside gate, using his special “secret code.”
“I’ll buzz him in,” Trishelle says, retreating to the kitchen.
I open the front door as Glenn gets out of his black BMW. “You didn’t check to see if it was me, did you? You have to check the security cameras, too,” he says.
“Then why do you have a secret code when you ring the bell?” I ask.
“You need layers of security. You still have to check.” He walks through the open door, right past me and into the living room like he owns the place, then recoils when he sees the mess we made. He goes to put his bass-heavy funk music on the stereo again, but I stop him.
“Did you get any photos of Le Clerq?” I ask.
“I sure did,” Glenn says, unzipping his backpack and handing me his camera.
I click through the images on the display screen. A heavyset man wearing a baseball hat
leans against a car, but his face is in shadow. He holds a camera with a telephoto lens up to his eye, but it blocks his face. He jaywalks across the street and joins a large crowd in front of an Oscar event. He’s not on crutches, but his face is in profile with his cap pulled down. The last photo is of a heavyset man inside Arby’s, waiting to order. It’s Le Clerq for sure, but he’s just standing in line. His coat and hat are off, so he’s not wearing the same outfit. He’s also wearing baggy sweatpants, so he could argue that he’s got a cast or leg brace on underneath.
“These won’t work. He can deny it’s him,” I say.
“I couldn’t get any closer,” Glenn says with a shrug. “Oh, the camera cost $750 plus tax.”
If Steven had been taking the pictures, they would have been in focus and revealed an entire story in each frame. Sometimes you don’t appreciate what someone can do until you see what someone else can’t. I find my wallet and pull out eight one-hundred-dollar bills.
“I should make you do the dishes,” I say, nodding at the messy coffee table.
“You’re seeing him in an hour, aren’t you?” Glenn whispers.
“Who?” I whisper back, just to tease him, holding the cash in my hand.
“Steven. Where are you meeting him again?”
“I didn’t say. And where’s Carl Webb? Shouldn’t he be back by now?”
He just raises his eyebrows at me, like he can’t reveal what he knows.
“So I’m paying for your expertise, but you still answer to Carl. Is that how this works?”
Trishelle emerges from the kitchen and leans against the wall. She crosses her arms and sighs, shaking her head. “He should definitely do the dishes.”
“What?” Glenn asks, looking at us.
“I want Steven to stay in Malibu,” I say. “He’s coming home because I found information he wants. We must convince him that even with what I found, he doesn’t have enough time or information to continue alone, and that the LAPD and FBI should take over. Can you help us with that?”
“He won’t listen to me,” Glenn says. “Not after what I did to his computer.”
“He won’t listen to me either. But he may listen to Carl, so I need him here,” I say, and gesture for him to leave. “Until then, you and I are done.”
Chapter 29
* * *
Robert Snow
Day 10: Monday Morning
Malibu, California
It’s a sunny and clear late Monday morning, and while millions of Los Angeles office drones toil in their cubicles, Tina and I are hiking on the Backbone Trail that runs right along the crest of the Malibu Mountains.
“Are our bags safe in that dirt parking lot?” I ask.
“We’re the only people up here,” Tina says, adjusting her day pack. She’s got the picnic lunch and water, and I’m carrying the blanket and towels. She reaches and takes my hand.
“It’s so quiet,” I say.
“That’s why we came. You deserve this calm before the storm.”
We walk hand in hand. I haven’t held hands and walked with a girl since high school. Maybe never, actually. Maybe I just saw it in a movie about high school.
“We’re so high up that the ocean looks tilted from here,” I say.
“And blue. The sky and the ocean are almost the same color,” she says, then closes one eye and points in a long arc at the horizon, where the sky touches the sea.
She dressed sexy for me, in black hiking shorts and a tight blue shirt. Even the floppy sun hat and glasses add to her look. She reminds me of a trekker fucking her way around the world. I’d like to think she did that in her younger days.
“I never knew you could do this is L.A.,” I say.
“I try to do it as often as I can. It keeps me sane.”
The only noise is our shoes crunching on the dirt road. After all that work—the taping, the fighting, the rushing, the travel—this silent, slow emptiness is exactly what I need before I drive ten hours to Arizona.
“There are deer, bobcats, and coyotes up here. Even mountain lions,” Tina says.
“Mountain lions? Will we see one?” I ask, looking around.
“Probably not. They avoid us.”
I imagine a mountain lion tracking us and then leaping out and attacking. I remember a TV show about how to survive animal attacks. When a lion bites your arm, you resist the urge to pull your bloody arm away, and instead you push your arm deeper inside its mouth and throat so that it chokes. Or maybe that was an alligator. I want to tell Tina and impress her with my knowledge, but it now seems dumb enough that she might just laugh.
“Feeling better?” she asks. “You weren’t happy last night on the plane.”
“I guess I wasn’t.”
She squeezes my hand. “We need to be on the same page. The crew will be looking at us. We have to be a united front—”
“No chinks in the armor. I answer for you, and you for me. You’re saying my own lines back to me.” I laugh.
Tina swings our hands as we stroll along. It feels nice. “It’s what you tell me before every big production, but you need to hear it, too. You’re the best producer there is, but you always get so worked up before it begins.”
“I go into warp drive.”
“That’s why I want to clear the air before it gets crazy.”
I tug her to a stop. She stares up at me. Her eyes are open and honest. “It bugs me how Boss Man acted with you,” I say. “It really bugs me.”
“Like on the yacht in Maui?”
“And again on the jet. I brought him the show, I brought you on board, and he treated me like shit, even after his shark bit me.” I hold up my forearm and show the bandage.
“You have every right to be upset,” she says, then pulls my hand and we stroll again.
I kick at rocks, raising up dust. Walking side-by-side works. It feels more like a talk and less like a fight. “It was like he was showing off. He made me feel like an idiot.”
“He does it to show he’s in control. It’s just what powerful men do.”
I look down the steep green slope down to the silvery Malibu Lagoon far below. The few cars on the Pacific Coast Highway look like Hot Wheels. “You didn’t seem to mind,” I say.
“I felt awkward, but I felt like I had to go along with it.”
“He also knew about your son. You told me that part of your life is off-limits.”
Tina exhales. “He knew my whole life story somehow. It was weird. I wanted to stop him, but I didn’t feel comfortable. He’s our paycheck.”
“He acts like he owns us. He acts like he owns you.”
Tina stops and faces me, tugging the lapels of my windbreaker. “He doesn’t own me. I do what I want. And where am I right now? Huh?”
“With me, hiking.”
“He shouldn’t mess with your mind right before production. That’s his flaw, not yours. It proves he’s not perfect.” She pulls me close. “He may write the checks, but you brought me here. I know that. You’re the one making me rich.”
A cool breeze rises up the mountain and blows her hair across her eyes. She pulls it back and smiles at me. The wind moves like a wave through the tall green grass and shakes the leaves of the oak trees. It makes me feel like I’m in an old western, like we’re settlers falling in love.
“So…what’s going on with your son?” I ask, trying to sound casual but caring.
She blinks at me, and I sense the wheels turning in her mind. Can she still keep that off-limits now that she’s making six million dollars because of me?
“Jake has moderate cerebral palsy, and he’s on the autism spectrum.”
I nod with concern to hide my confusion. Everyone knows about autism; it’s almost chic. But cerebral palsy sounds like some childhood disease from another century, printed on cardboard March of Dimes boxes at Halloween time.
“If there’s anything I can do to help, let me know,” I say.
Tina touches the bandage on my forearm, tracing her finger across.<
br />
“You’ve already done everything. But there’s something I want to do for you.”
“Oh yeah? What’s that?” I ask, letting her fingers dance across my Frankenstein stitches.
“Let me handle finding the last American contestant. You have enough on your plate. Like I said on the plane, I’ll talk to the wardens, narrow down the choices, handle the trip, and get the intro footage and help you sell it to Boss Man. You focus on the show.”
“You can handle a prison visit on your own?”
“In the States? Yes, I can.”
“What will Boss Man think?”
“What can he say? He said hiring me was the best thing you ever did. Doing this just proves his point, but makes both of us rich.”
“Does this mean we’re an item?” I ask. “You said to clear the air. I like getting twelve million dollars, but getting you is something I want, too.”
She smiles, but doesn’t answer. “Let’s put the blanket down on that grassy point.” She points at a little flat spot a hundred yards off the trail. “We’ll enjoy our picnic.”
She leads me through the tall grass. The burrs grab my socks and the blades brush my skin, making me itch. A small ledge appears below, hidden from the trail. I can see all the way back to Santa Monica. We have a fantastic view of everything below us, but no one can see us unless they’re on a distant mountain trail above.
“Julia Travers is down there somewhere,” I say.
“Trapped in her house?” Tina asks.
“That’s what my emails say. She has a court case this week, probably.”
“I feel bad for her.”
I lay the blanket down. Tina secures it in place with rocks at each corner, and then we tumble on its plushy softness. She takes off her backpack, pauses, smirks, and then pulls her shirt over her head. Her breasts are squeezed together by a pink bra that snaps in front, and she pulls my face right between them. She smells like roses. She reaches between my legs and feels me stiffen, then finds my hand and guides it between her legs. Her strong upper thighs are bare and smooth, and I slide my fingers up under the cotton fabric of her shorts and touch her until she moistens and her head rolls back.
