It was answered on the second ring. Apparently, this Winsley character was a night owl too. “Hello?” a smooth tenor answered.
“This is Rusty,” Lanford said, suddenly unwilling to give his full name. “I, uh, have your card here.”
“Yes, Mr. Lanford,” Winsley said, his voice brightening and at the same time turning briskly businesslike. “If I may say so, you’re definitely a man in need of my services.”
“And what services would those be?” Lanford asked. “Security?”
“Oh, please,” Winsley said with a chuckle. “The paparazzi and their telephoto lenses laugh at large men with guns and frowny faces. No, what I’m offering is the chance to get the paparazzi off your back forever. Well, after dark, at least.”
“After dark?” Lanford echoed.
“But then, from what I’ve seen in the tabloids, most of your trouble comes at night anyway,” Winsley continued. “Harassing you and your lovely female companions. Was tonight’s a new one, by the way?”
“You mean Natalie?” Lanford asked. “No, I’ve been seeing her for a couple of weeks.”
“Ah,” Winsley said. “I’ve been a little out of touch, I’m afraid. Anyway, are you interested in hearing more?”
“I suppose,” Lanford said cautiously. “When?”
“Why not now?” Winsley said. “You have security cameras outside your front door, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course,” Lanford said, feeling rather like he had that time the raft broke loose while they were filming Jeremiah and he’d been dragged two miles through raging whitewater before they finally got to him. This was all happening way too fast.
“Go downstairs and turn on the cameras,” Winsley instructed. “I’ll be there shortly.”
“Wait a—”
“See you soon.” The phone went dead.
Lanford closed the phone, muttering a Romanian curse he’d learned back when he did Ill Bit by Moonlight. Pulling on his jacket again, he stalked downstairs and turned on the monitors.
The well-lit driveway was empty. So was the equally well-lit portico outside the front door.
He was still gazing at the emptiness, wondering what in the world he was doing, when there was a knock at that same front door.
Lanford stared. This was impossible. The entire door was visible on the screens. Yet the knock had come from the door, not from somewhere along the wall that might somehow be out of the cameras’ range.
Could someone have fed a tape loop into the system while he was out, as he himself had done in Ten Seconds to Treason? But his system was all digital and didn’t use tape. Would that make a difference?
“Mr. Lanford?”
Lanford jerked. Winsley’s voice had definitely come through the door. Right from a spot where the cameras were showing empty air.
“Mr. Lanford?”
Lanford squared his shoulders. If this was one of those stupid practical joke shows, he was not going to go all twitchy just for their amusement. He turned the dead bolt, and then, watching the monitor carefully, he slowly turned the doorknob.
The knob turned in exact sync with how he was turning it. So it wasn’t a loop, after all.
Which meant that it was some sort of ventriloquism gag, instead. Throw the knock, throw the voice, and see if you could scare good old he-man actor Rusty Lanford for a loop of his own. Muttering the Romanian curse again, he twisted the knob the rest of the way and swung open the door.
To find a young man standing in front of him on the mat, all calmness and pleasant smiles. “Good evening, Mr. Lanford,” he said briskly. “I’m Janick Winsley.”
For a long minute Lanford just stared at him. Then, almost unwillingly, he looked back at the monitor.
The screen showed the door opened wide, and Lanford standing there with his mouth hanging open. Of Winsley himself there was no sign. None.
“No, I’m not a ghost,” Winsley said into the silence. His professional voice had a hint of amusement in it. “May I come in?”
Moving like a man in a slow-motion dream, Lanford stepped back. Winsley walked inside and closed the door. His footsteps, Lanford noted distantly, made just the right amount of noise, and he could feel the slight vibration of the floor through his own shoes.
On the monitors, the door appeared to close by itself.
“Why don’t we sit down?” Winsley continued, gesturing toward the living room. “Maybe have a drink, too. I know this is a lot to take in one gulp.”
Lanford took a deep breath. Whatever was going on here, he was not going to crack for some hidden camera’s benefit. “What did you mean about being a ghost?” he asked, ungluing himself from the floor and heading to the living room.
“What?” Winsley asked as he followed. “Oh—that. A lot of people think I’m a ghost, that’s all. It sometimes helps to clear that one up right from the start.”
“A lot of people?” Lanford asked, his frozen brain finding a section of dialogue he could get a handle on. “You’ve done this before?”
“Oh, many times,” Winsley assured him as he settled himself into one of the recliners. “Shall we get to business? Or—sorry—did you want that drink first?”
“Business first,” Lanford said, sitting down on the couch on the other side of the coffee table.
“Excellent,” Winsley said approvingly as he crossed his legs. “Well, then. I presume you’ve got some questions. But first, would you like another demonstration?”
“Demonstration?” Lanford asked, a bit lamely.
“Yes,” Winsley said. “You could get a camera and—” He broke off, took a close look at Lanford’s face, and sighed. “Maybe it would be easier if I just laid it out for you. As you just saw, I’m invisible to all cameras. I can give you the same—”
“To TV cameras, anyway,” Lanford put in.
“To all cameras,” Winsley said, a slight edge to his voice. “TV, movie, film, digital, infrared—if it takes in light and creates an image, I’m invisible to it.” He smiled suddenly. “I also don’t show up in mirrors. Does that remind you of anything?”
Lanford frowned. Then, abruptly, that scene from Ill Bit by Moonlight flashed to mind. “You mean you’re . . . you’re a . . . a . . . a vampire?”
“Very good—you got it out,” Winsley said with a grin. “Actually, no, I’m not. Or rather, not completely.”
This was all coming way too fast. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I don’t turn into a bat or drink blood or any of that other stuff,” Winsley explained. “The only vampiric trait I have, actually, is that I don’t show up on cameras.” He gestured to Lanford. “And I can make it so that you won’t, either.”
“You mean ever?” Lanford asked as another piece surfaced that he could understand. “But I’m an actor.”
“Of course you are,” Winsley said soothingly. “Don’t worry, my technique works on a strictly temporary basis. That’s why I specified you’d only be invisible after dark. After all, we have to let you make a living during the day, don’t we?”
“So I will be visible when I’m being filmed?” Lanford said, just making sure.
“Yes,” Winsley said. “Of course, that means the paparazzi will still be all over you during those times, too. Nothing I can do about that, I’m afraid, unless you’re looking to change careers.”
“No, thanks,” Lanford said. “So how does it work?” He frowned suddenly, remembering something else from that vampire movie: “You don’t have to bite me, do you?”
“Oh, please,” Winsley said, looking pained. “No. Fortunately it’s much simpler than that.”
Reaching into his pocket, he drew out two white containers the size of aspirin bottles. One of them had a thin blue line around the edge of the cap, the other had a red line. “Blue pills; red pills,” he said, hefting them one at a time. “You take a blue pill after sundown, ten minutes before you plan to go out. Then you take a red pill before sunrise the next morning. Nothing could be simpler.”
Lanford eyed the bottles suspiciously. It was simple, all right. Way too simple. “And the vermin won’t be able to see me?”
“They’ll see you just fine,” Winsley said patiently. “They just won’t be able to take your picture.”
“And there are no side effects?”
“Not as long as you follow the instructions,” Winsley said. “What do you say? Shall we give it a test run?”
Lanford was still staring at the bottles. They seemed to have an almost hypnotic effect. “What do you mean? Take a pill and go find some paparazzi?”
“Actually, I was thinking more of you taking a pill and getting out your camera,” Winsley said. “But if you want to go whole hog, sure, why not? It’s not like you’ll have to go very far—there was still one sitting out front when I came in.”
Waiting there on the chance that Natalie would try to slip in on her own, no doubt. “Vermin,” he growled.
“Indeed they are.” Winsley raised his eyebrows slightly. “As a matter of fact, I believe it’s the same man you punched in Sadie’s tonight.”
“Is he, now,” Lanford said, standing up as his brain finally started to unfreeze. Browser outside his house, and unable to get photographic evidence of anything Lanford did? “Give me those.”
Winsley tossed the blue-rimmed bottle across the coffee table. “Shall I get you some water?”
“Don’t bother.” Lanford twisted off the blue-edged cap and looked inside.
He’d expected something exotic-looking, like the deadly muscle enhancers from Man and a Half. But they were just plain blue tablets the size and shape of over-the-counter pain medicine. Shaking one out into his palm, he tossed it back in his throat and swallowed.
For a few seconds he stood motionless, feeling the lingering sensation of the pill in his throat, waiting for something dramatic to happen. But nothing did. He felt just fine, and not very vampiric at all. “Nothing’s happening,” he said.
“It takes ten minutes, remember?” Winsley reminded him. “Actually, you might want to watch it this first time. You have a mirror somewhere handy?”
“Over here,” Lanford said, and led the way to the guest bathroom.
And over the next ten minutes he watched in a combination of horror and fascination as his image in the mirror slowly faded away into nothingness.
“It’s temporary, right?” he asked one last time as he shifted his attention between his completely solid hand and the blank mirror.
“Just take a red pill,” Winsley said. “Shall we see if Browser’s still out there?”
“You stay here,” Lanford said, heading for the front door. “Help yourself to something from the bar.”
When Lanford slipped through the gate, Browser was sitting in his car, studying his bruised cheek and eye in his rearview mirror. “You’re up late, Browser,” Lanford greeted him as he strode up to the paparazzo’s car.
“Well, well—the big he-man himself,” Browser said sarcastically as he turned to Lanford. His eye was already starting to puff up, Lanford saw, with the promise of being a spectacular shiner by morning. “ ’Smatter, big man? Conscience bothering you?”
“I’m surprised you even know what a conscience is,” Lanford said. “No, I just came out to deliver a warning.”
Browser raised his eyebrows, though only one of them actually moved. “Really,” he said, his hands dropping casually to his waist. Readying his camera, no doubt, in hopes of getting a juicy candid photo. “I’m listening.”
“Leave my dates alone,” Lanford said, stopping a few feet short of the car and giving Browser the intimidating glare and full-bodied voice he’d used as chief heavy in Sicily. “You want pictures of me, fine. Come by the studio, catch me at lunch—knock yourself out. But leave my girlfriends alone. You hear me?”
“I hear you,” Browser said. “And here’s a little something for you.” He lifted his left hand, middle finger extended.
Lanford suppressed a smile. It was an old, old trick, trying to goad your subject into responding in kind to an obscene gesture. The tabloids loved pics like that, which was why he never took the bait.
Until now. “Right back at you,” he said, lifting his own middle finger in response.
Quick as a rattlesnake, Bowser’s right hand came up from his lap and a flash burned into Lanford’s retina. “Ha!” the ghoul gloated.
“Oh, you want candid?” Lanford said, holding his finger out for one more flash. “Here’s some candid for you.”
Browser was still flashing madly away as Lanford re-formed his hand into a fist and hit the vermin right in the center of his bruise. “There you go,” he said over the other’s howl of pain. “Have a good night.”
Turning, he strode back to the gate. He opened it, locked it behind him, and then took a moment to look over his shoulder.
Browser was sitting in his car, bathed in the faint glow from his dome light. One hand was pressed against his newly injured cheek; the other was rapidly thumbing through his camera’s memory. And what Lanford could see of his face looked confused, alarmed, and furious, all at the same time.
Winsley was back in his recliner when Lanford came in, a small drink in his hand. “Enjoy yourself?” he asked as Lanford headed to the bar.
“Immensely,” Lanford assured him. “I even got to hit him again, right in the middle of his bruise.”
“So that he won’t have anything new to show the cops,” Winsley said, nodding. “Nice.”
“Actually, I was thinking that it would hurt more there,” Lanford said. “But you’re right, too.” He took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m sold. How much?”
Winsley gestured at the pill bottles sitting on the coffee table. “You’ve got a week’s supply there, assuming you take a pair every night. This first batch is free.”
Lanford frowned. “Oh?”
Winsley smiled faintly. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to toss any hidden strings at you. I’ve just learned that it takes a week or so for the paparazzi to finally give up on those evening shots and go away. Hence, those few days are free. The next batch will cost twenty thousand a week.”
Lanford smiled to himself. That was probably less than half of what one of those vermin could get for a really juicy photo of him. “Deal,” he said.
“Excellent,” Winsley said, setting down his drink and standing up. “You’ve got my number. Let me know when you’re ready for more.”
Lanford spent the next hour with his four cameras, including his old classic Polaroid, taking endless photos of the empty space where he should have been. Then, almost reluctantly, he decided it was time to call it a day. He wasn’t due at the studio until ten, but if he didn’t get at least a few hours of sleep, Jenny or Randall in makeup would chide him about the dark circles under his eyes, which they would have to cover up.
Before he crawled into bed, though, he made sure to take his red pill.
The next week was heaven on earth.
The very first day, his assistants fielded eight separate calls asking oblique questions about his health. They assured everyone that, yes, Rusty Lanford was fine, was hard at work on his next film, and that they were welcome to come by to see for themselves if they wanted.
At least two of the calls, as near as Lanford could tell from the voices on the tape, were from Browser himself.
The vermin were heavily in evidence when Lanford went out clubbing that night, throwing enough flashes at him to spark a Sierra wildfire. A few of them got right up in his face, risking the same violence that had happened to Browser the night before. Lanford let them get away with it this time, and waited for the inevitable reaction.
It came about two hours into his club crawl, when the flashes suddenly went dark for nearly half an hour while the vermin apparently got together, compared notes, and tried to figure out what was going on. The respite was followed by a fresh surge of activity, accompanied by a lot of cursing and shouted demands.
Unfortunately for them, Lanford had carefully chosen that final clu
b because it was owned by a friend of his. After ignoring two warnings to keep it civil, the whole lot of them ended up in the nearest police station’s holding cells.
The second night was much like the first, except they’d learned to keep it civil. The third night, only a few hopefuls showed up and hung around for only about an hour before heading off to hunt more promising and profitable game.
Midway through the third night, Lanford felt confident enough to call Natalie and ask her out for the next evening.
Pictures of Rusty Lanford with his latest femme du jour were always in demand, and he and Natalie had to suffer through a few opportunistic flashes as vermin stalking other targets caught sight of them. But, as on the previous evenings, the harassment stopped very quickly.
He had a bad moment the next day when a couple of Web sites proudly displayed some photos of him and Natalie together. But the studio’s legal department—and Lanford’s own legion of fans—were right on top of it, and by lunchtime they’d conclusively proved that his image had been Photoshopped into the pictures. The Web sites quickly took them down, and Lanford spent most of his free time that afternoon daydreaming about the conversations that probably went on between the sites and the offending vermin. Presumably, considerable sums of money reversed direction, as well.
The next night, no one showed up at all. No matter what the paparazzi saw, they got paid only if there were photos; and even if they couldn’t figure out how Lanford was doing it, it was abundantly clear that he was no longer going to be a cash cow for them.
At least, not after dark. They still could—and did—hound his footsteps during the day. But that was all right. Lanford was, after all, a media personality, and the free publicity those shots provided were all to the best. As long as they left him alone on his nights out, he was happy to handle the daylight stuff.
The effect of the unspoken truce on Natalie was like magic. With the disappearance of their unwanted entourage, her tension faded and she started genuinely enjoying his company. Lanford pressed his advantage, working the sequence he’d used in Countdown to Love, as he wore down the last of her lingering resistance to his charm.
Twilight Zone Anthology Page 15
