Six days after Winsley had not shown up on his security cameras, he finally scored.
His first warning that something was wrong was when he was jolted awake the next morning with the terrifying sensation that the house was on fire. He jerked upright in bed, throwing off the blankets, his eyes blurring momentarily as he tried to get them open and focused.
Only, nothing was wrong. In the hint of sunlight peeking through the blinds, the bedroom looked just the way it always did, except for the tangled trail of clothing leading back to the door.
But while there weren’t any flames, there was a hint of an odd smell coming from somewhere. Had Natalie lit some incense after he’d nodded off?
He looked down at her, still sleeping peacefully on the other side of the bed. At least his sudden movement hadn’t awakened her. It was just after six, he saw by the bedside clock, five minutes after his alarm should have gone off. Was the sound of the buzzer what had sparked his waking nightmare about fire?
Five more minutes, he told himself. Five minutes, and a quick shower, and he could still make his makeup call. Blinking his eyes again, he lay back down.
His head had just hit the pillow when a sudden, burning pain flashed through his cheek.
“Ow!” He gasped, snapping back up into a sitting position and grabbing for his cheek. What the hell—? His eyes fell on the pale beam of sunlight crossing the pillow.
And the awful truth flooded in on him.
In the heat of passion and the languid drowsiness afterward, he’d forgotten to take the red pill.
He threw off the blankets, still clutching his throbbing cheek, and made a mad dash for the master bathroom, the only room in the house without any windows. Along the way he crossed two more errant sunbeams, picking up two more slashes of pain across his thigh and shoulder. He made it through the bathroom door, slammed it behind him, and grabbed a towel to jam under the door. Breathing hard, he flipped on the lights.
His first impulse was to go to the mirror to see what sort of damage the sunlight might have done to his famous cheekbones. But all the mirror showed was the Jacuzzi tub behind him. Cursing under his breath, he instead twisted around to see the back of his throbbing leg.
The burn looked nasty, a bright red welt across the skin. And that was just the diffuse light that had managed to get through the blinds. God only knew what would happen if full-bore sunlight got him.
Luckily, God was going to get to keep that knowledge to Himself. Popping open the medicine cabinet, Lanford twisted the top off the red-rimmed bottle and popped the second-to-last pill.
“Rusty?” Natalie’s voice came faintly through the door. “You all right?” The doorknob rattled and started to turn.
“No!” Lanford snapped, leaping back to the door and grabbing the knob to keep it from turning all the way. “I mean no, I’m not well. I think I’m going to be sick.”
“You mean sick as in . . . sick?”
“Very sick,” Lanford said. “Those, uh, probably that shrimp cocktail. I think I’m going to be in here awhile. Sorry.”
“That’s okay,” Natalie said, sounding both concerned and disappointed. “Can I get you anything?”
“No, I’ve got everything I need,” Lanford assured her, glaring into the mirror. He’d never watched the magic process in reverse and had no idea how long it was going to take. But surely it couldn’t be more than the ten minutes it took going the other direction. “You can use the bathroom downstairs if you want to shower.”
“Okay,” she said. Her footsteps faded away, and Lanford went back to standing in front of the mirror. Nothing was happening. Shouldn’t something be happening?
He frowned, cocking his head. Some sort of faint scratching sound was coming from somewhere outside the door.
He caught his breath as the sound abruptly clicked. Natalie was opening the blinds!
No! Ruthlessly, he choked back the impulsive shout. Of course she was opening the blinds. Everyone opened the blinds in the morning. If he ordered her not to, she’d only want to know why.
The bedroom had been dangerous before. Now, Natalie had unknowingly turned it into a death trap.
For the next half hour he paced across the cold marble floor, looking into the blank mirror each time he passed, listening to the faint sound of running water from downstairs. Midway through Natalie’s shower, with still nothing happening, he swallowed the last of his red pills. Maybe a double dose would do the trick.
Natalie finished her shower and presently he heard the sound of footsteps outside the door again. “Rusty? How are you doing?” she asked.
“Still sick,” Lanford said. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay. I understand.” There was a brief pause. “Uh . . . how am I going to get to work?”
Lanford winced. Telling her to call a cab would be incredibly tacky. But the alternative . . . “I guess you can take the Vette,” he said between clenched teeth. He hated letting other people drive his cars. “Keys are on the hook by the garage door.”
“Oh,” she said, an odd tone to her voice. “Okay. Thank you.”
Lanford ground his teeth in frustration. Natalie knew about his love for his cars, of course. Everyone in the Western Hemisphere and parts of Europe knew it. Which meant she was undoubtedly swelling her view of their relationship into something way beyond anything justified by a simple one-night stand.
But there was nothing he could do about it. Not until he could get out of this damned bathroom. “I’ll call you later,” he added.
“Okay,” she said. “Bye.”
“Bye.”
A minute later came the hum of the garage-door opener, followed by the throaty roar of his Corvette. He strained his ears, wincing, as she ran awkwardly through the gears on her way down the driveway.
And then she was gone, and he was alone.
He looked around the bathroom, too emotionally drained even to swear. No phone. No food. Plenty of water, but so what?
And meanwhile, his career was about to go straight down the tubes. Kendall Fornier was one of the world’s most demanding directors, and Lanford was already late. If he didn’t figure out something, and fast, the phone in the bedroom was going to start ringing.
Right on cue, it did.
Lanford looked around the bathroom again, trying desperately to think. Still no phone. He couldn’t throw a note out a window—no window. The sunlight that must be blazing across his bedroom by now would cook him like an Argentine steak if he tried to get to the phone.
But if he didn’t do something—if he didn’t get out there and answer that phone—Tom or Bonnie or one of his other assistants would eventually get worried and send someone to check on him. When he also didn’t answer the door, they would probably call the paramedics, who would probably break down his door and stomp upstairs and probably ignore his protests that he was fine and break down the bathroom door, too.
At which point he would probably flash cook into a mound of greasy ashes. The vampire in Ill Bit by Moonlight had done that, though it had taken the FX people three takes to get it right.
Lanford would probably get it in one.
The bedside phone stopped ringing. Five seconds later, his cell phone began chirping the studio’s personalized signal.
He winced. So it wasn’t one of his assistants calling. It was one of Fornier’s people, calling on Fornier’s orders, which meant the damn director didn’t have anything better to do than watch the clock and count heads.
Come on, Lanford, think! Think of something! This was ridiculous—he’d played the master improv craftsman in three separate Ennis McKenzie movies. Surely he’d picked up something of the technique along the way.
And then, finally, he got an idea.
The bedside phone had started up again, its ring making a nice counterpoint to the cell’s chirping, by the time he had the eight huge Turkish bath towels wrapped around him. Sweating inside his new cocoon, wondering if he was going to suffocate before the sunlight even had a
chance to cook him, he awkwardly turned the doorknob with his elbows and shuffled out into the bedroom.
There was no possible way to pick up his bedside phone without exposing his hands to the burning rays he was sure he could feel right through three layers of towel. Fortunately, his cell was still in his jacket pocket on the floor somewhere near the bedroom door. Waiting until it started its chirping again, he homed in on the sound and pushed the whole jacket along the rug in front of him like a penguin trying to get its egg up on its toes.
He’d known that nature documentary he’d been conned into narrating would come in handy someday.
The cell had rung twice more by the time he made it back into the safety of the bathroom and got the door closed and sealed again behind him. Ripping off the towels, he dug the phone out of the jacket and punched in Fornier’s private cell number.
There was no answer. He must already be on the set, where any phone left on was subject to instant demolition. A quick scrolling through the missed-calls list showed that two of them had been Bonnie, and he punched for a callback.
The assistant answered on the first ring. “Mr. Lanford!” she said, sounding breathless. “I’ve been trying to reach you all—”
“I know—I’ve been listening to the phone ring,” Lanford cut her off. “Listen, I’ve come down with something and I can’t come in today.”
“What sort of something?”
“You really don’t want to know,” Lanford told her, trying to straddle that thin line between the vague and the suspiciously implausible. Still, he’d had lots of practice doing that in Keefer at the Races. “Let’s just say I’m leaking badly. At both ends.”
“Oh,” Bonnie said, her voice suddenly going a little queasy. “Is, uh, that what you want me to tell Mr. Fornier?”
“Tell him to take Acapulco and multiply it by about ten,” Lanford told her. “If he wants details, he can call me now that I’ve managed to get the phone in here with me.”
“Okay, I’ll tell him,” Bonnie said. “Anything I can do for you?”
“No, this is just something that has to run its course,” Lanford assured her. “Hopefully, I’ll be fine by tomorrow.”
“Okay, Mr. Lanford,” she said. “If you need anything, just call.”
“I will,” Lanford promised. “You and Tom might as well take the day off. I’ll talk to you later.”
Lanford’s next call was to the studio wonk who’d called him, feeding him the same line and assurances he’d just fed Bonnie. The wonk wasn’t nearly as easy to convince, but Lanford had been brushing off people for years and he got rid of the man quickly enough.
His third call was to Winsley.
“Good morning, Mr. Lanford,” Winsley said cheerfully. “I presume you’re calling about a new supply—”
“It won’t shut off,” Lanford snapped.
There was a brief pause. “What?” Winsley asked more cautiously.
“It won’t shut off,” Lanford repeated. “I forgot to take the red pill last night, and now I’m stuck this way. I took the pill—both of them, actually—and nothing happened.”
The pause this time was longer. “Okay,” Winsley said at last. “First thing to do is not panic.”
“Not panic?” Lanford echoed. “Can’t you fix this?”
“Of course I can,” Winsley said. “It’s happened before. You got drunk or something, right? Or you were with a woman—this Natalie or whoever—”
“Never mind what I was doing,” Lanford ground out. “Just fix this.”
“I’m on it,” Winsley promised. “Where are you now?”
“In my bathroom,” Lanford said. “No windows, and I’ve got towels stuffed under the door.”
“Sounds good,” Winsley said. “Just stay there. I’ll get back to you as soon as I’ve got an answer.”
“Any idea how long?”
“Not really,” Winsley said. “It’s different every time it happens.”
Lanford felt his eyes widen. “What do you mean every time? I thought you said there were no side effects.”
“As long as you follow the instructions,” Winsley said patiently. “But sooner or later you Hollywood types always—Never mind. Like I said, I’m on it. Just stay there, at least until eight-o-three, and I’ll call you.”
“Eight-o-three?”
“Sundown,” Winsley said. “Don’t leave before that.”
“Don’t worry,” Lanford growled. “Just hurry it up, will you?”
“You got it.” The phone went dead.
Lanford spent the next hour on the phone, talking to his assistants, his housekeeper—no, no need to come in today—more of Kendall Fornier’s studio wonks, and finally Fornier himself.
The Great Man wasn’t happy. In fact, judging by the level of cultured civility in his voice, he was furious. Lanford tried every calming trick he knew, but he could tell that none of them was helping. Promising to be back on set as soon as possible—and also promising he’d see a doctor if his supposed ailments hadn’t cleared up in two days—he wished Fornier well and hung up.
The rest of the day he spent brooding.
You Hollywood types, Winsley had said. How many of his fellow actors, Lanford wondered, had tried this same antipaparazzi stunt and run into this same problem? The big names in the business were always going into seclusion or sneaking into some high-priced rehab facility somewhere. How many of those were actually hiding from nothing more exotic than sunlight?
Or was it even worse? Lanford couldn’t even name all the actors he’d known through his career who’d suddenly quit the business and retired into complete obscurity in some backwater like Fresno or Oregon. Had all of them simply been tired of the phoniness of the movie business? Or had they quit because they’d become permanently invisible to cameras?
Or had Winsley been lying about his vast client list? Was Lanford simply the guinea pig in this particular technique?
In which case, Winsley might not have the faintest idea how to reverse it.
He spent the last hour pacing restlessly back and forth, his heart thudding with dread and anger and a sudden surge of claustrophobia. Finally, at exactly eight-o-four, he kicked the towel out from under the door, twisted the knob, and escaped.
The first order of business was to close all the shades in the house, as tightly as he could get them. The second was to get dressed. Food and drink—real drink, not just tap water—were next on the list.
The smart thing would have been to stay home, out of the public eye. But the claustrophobia that had hit him in the bathroom had extended itself to include the whole house, and he had to get out before he went completely crazy. There had to be some-place in the L.A. basin, some seedy neighborhood bar and grill, where they wouldn’t recognize the famous Rusty Lanford. Or at least where they wouldn’t believe it if they did spot him. Putting on the shabby jacket, hat, and glasses he’d swiped as souvenirs from the Jackson’s Way wardrobe, he got into his still not-quite-restored 1985 Mustang and headed off into the gathering dusk.
He landed in Pomona, or possibly Montclair. The place was no great shakes, but the extra-rare steak he ordered was cooked properly, the beer was acceptable, and—best of all—there was no mirror behind the bar.
He had just finished the steak and was working on his third beer when the door opened with a rattle of small bells and Browser walked in.
Lanford ducked his head, rubbing vigorously at a pretend itch over his eyebrow. But Browser wasn’t fooled, or else he already knew Lanford was here. He glanced around the bar, then headed straight across to Lanford’s table. “Well, well,” he said as he helped himself to a chair. “Fancy seeing you here.”
Lanford sighed and gave up on the eyebrow rubbing. “What do you want, Browser?”
“What I want is to know how you’re doing this,” Browser said. “But none of the others would ever tell me, so I don’t suppose you will, either.”
So Winsley hadn’t been lying about his client list. Even a ghoul like B
owser had apparently heard of at least some of them. “You’re right, I won’t,” Lanford said.
“Didn’t think so.” Browser cocked his head. “By the way, did you know I was fired today? Oh, no, of course you don’t. Silly me. You spent the day hiding from everyone, didn’t you?”
“No, I spent the day being sick,” Lanford corrected him stiffly.
“Ah,” Browser said. “Remarkable recovery.”
“Don’t count on it,” Lanford said, frowning as his brain belatedly caught up with his ears. “What do you mean, you were fired? I thought you people worked freelance.”
“Some of us also have retainers,” Browser bit out. “Or we did. I don’t. Not anymore.”
“Let me guess,” Lanford said, permitting himself a smile. “You were the one who sold those Photoshopped fakes.”
“They weren’t fakes,” Browser snapped. “You were there. I just put you back in where you belonged.”
Lanford shrugged. “Still constitutes fraud.”
“Yeah, so they tell me,” Browser growled. “They also tell me my credibility is shot to hell.” He smiled thinly. “So as long as you’ve ruined me, I thought I’d return the favor.” He waved dramatically at the door.
Lanford looked over at the door, feeling his stomach wrapping a little tighter around his dinner. But nothing happened. “Really?” he said.
Browser snorted. “People,” he said with a sniff. “Don’t any of you know how to hit cues anymore?” Abruptly, he stood up. “Oh, well, it’s still too late for you. See you around, Lanford. Maybe.”
With a nod, he strode away from the table and sat down at the bar. Lanford watched as he muttered something to the bartender, wondering what all that had been about.
And then, with a horrible jolt, he understood.
Snatching out his wallet, he dropped three twenties onto the table beside his plate and slid out of his chair, jamming his hat back around his ears as he made for the door. He had to get out of here, and fast.
He was still three paces away when the door swung open and Kendall Fornier strode into the bar.
Twilight Zone Anthology Page 16
