Dead in L.A. (A Gathering Dead Novel)

by Stephen Knight

  “Nope. Never needed one.”

  “Okay. I’ll give you the short pitch, but you’ll have to get an agent to seal the deal. Presuming the rights to your book are still available, I’d make an initial offer of five hundred thousand to lock them up, with an escalation of two hundred and fifty thousand if it moves into production. I’d also hire you as a consulting producer, which means you get to do what you did here, only people would listen. Industry rate is between forty-five to seventy thousand per year, though some lucky individuals can make it into six figures. I pay on the high end, and you wouldn’t be working every day. Up front, you’d have to pay some sweat, but once things settle down? You’d have a lot of free time.”

  Gee, sign me up! Wallace thought while maintaining a poker face. “Sounds interesting,” he said. It was tough to keep the joy out of his voice when he spoke.

  “It is interesting,” Norton said with a nod. “Look, we’re just talking here, right? But the truth is, I’m looking to cut a deal with you. You’ll need an agent, and he or she will drive these prices even higher in some cases, but there’s a limit. You’ll have to make some decisions. You’ll be co-creator of the show, and if it gets produced and picked up by HBO or Showtime or Netflix or whatever, you’ll also get additional payouts per episode as well as residuals and ancillary benefits from whatever else is tied to the show. T-shirts, posters, music, sequels, spin-offs, what have you. You made a couple of million off your book, right?”

  “Yeah, around that,” Wallace said, his head spinning. “Well, I’m supposed to, anyway.”

  “Publishers are notorious for running out the chain. When it comes time to pay, they’re always slow. I’m not, just in case you were wondering. Anyway. Then if things work out, get ready to make two mill every year.” Norton spread his hands. “How’s that?”

  “Um, can’t shake a stick at it,” Wallace said. There was a numbness to his voice, and his face felt suddenly tingly.

  “I’d like to give you some advice,” Norton said. “I know this is a lot to take in all at once, and especially right when you were walking off a TV set feeling kind of pissed that people weren’t taking you seriously. But there is something serious you need to consider, here.”

  “Okay. What’s that?”

  Norton jerked his head toward the parking lot behind the shooting location, and Wallace followed him as the producer strolled toward it. He said good night to a couple of grips as they loaded up camera gear and dollies into a truck, and waved to one of the show’s stars, a total metrosexual that Wallace estimated never would have made it past the first three days of any police academy in the nation. Everyone seemed happy to receive Norton’s favor, and a few folks gave Wallace some curious looks when he saw him accompanying the tanned producer.

  “Actually, there are two things,” Norton said quietly as they walked. “The first isn’t terribly important, and maybe you had a taste of it already after your book started charting. People are going to come out of the woodwork wanting a piece of you after you seal a deal like the one we’re talking about. And by that, I mean they’re going to want your cash, your celebrity, your access. They’ll start giving you all sorts of things—free dinners, complimentary drinks, killer leases on expensive cars, all that stuff you may have already experienced to one degree or another. Ignore that shit. Be kind, be polite, but ignore it. It’s meaningless. Oh, and attached to that—you’re not a bad looking guy, so the women will come out in force in this town. I know you’re married with a kid, so they’ll know that too. There’s something about being rich and married in L.A. that drives girls in this industry crazy. I’ve seen a lot of guys take a hard fall getting sidetracked into something they shouldn’t have. Keep that in mind.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m happily married and don’t need that to change,” Wallace said. “But thanks for the tip.”

  “Great. Second thing—”

  “Gary, leaving without saying goodbye?” The show’s director, a swarthy Latino with razor stubble and a shaved head practically launched himself at Norton, one perfectly manicured hand extended, smiling like a hyena. At the same time, the man’s eyes cut over to Wallace, and lurking in their luminous depths was the unspoken question, What’s a civilian like you doing talking with Gary Norton... and is there something for me in this?

  “Vicente, just seeing Mister Wallace off. Not to worry, I’ll be back,” Norton said, clasping the director’s hand and shaking it vigorously. “Great shoot today, you were in fantastic form. Keep up the good work, all right?”

  “Oh, you’re not leaving?” the director asked. He looked at Wallace again.

  “No, no. Why, is there something you need?”

  “Yeah, I came up with a great idea for a story arc for next season! I want to run it by you, see what you think!”

  “Sure, we can get to that in just a little bit. I’ll come find you, all right?”

  “Great, Gary. Great!” The director looked at Wallace again and smiled at him. “Thanks for all your help, Bob,” he said. It was the first time the little man had smiled at Wallace. Most of the time, he had scowled, especially when Wallace began making suggestions to dial back the insanity he wanted to shoot.

  “It’s Rob, and thank you for the opportunity,” Wallace said.

  “Oh, Rob! Rob! So sorry!”

  “Catch you in a few, Vicente,” Norton said airily as he started walking again. “Maybe dinner, if you’re free?”

  “Hell, yes! That’d be great!” Vicente said, beaming like a homely girl who had just been asked to the prom by the most popular boy in school. He practically bounced away, strutting back to the set.

  “See what I mean?” Norton said. “Vicente’s actually a good director. Not great, and never will be, but he can deliver stuff on time and usually under budget. But he’s always looking for something else, right? People like him will be all over you, especially if we start working together, and doubly so if things are a success. You drive the Dodge?”

  “Yeah. So what’s the other thing?”

  Norton walked to Wallace’s Ram and stopped beside it. He slipped his hands into the pockets of his khaki trousers as he turned toward Wallace.

  “The important thing is this: don’t make any changes. Stay where you are. Don’t run out and buy a mansion in Bel Air. Don’t lease a twelve-cylinder Mercedes. Don’t pull your kid out of school and send him to another one, just because it’s got some fancy name and a reputation. The money will flow toward you, but it’s up to you to keep it. Everyone will have their hands out, but if you keep it close, watch it, guard it, it’ll be there when you have something you really need it for. I’ve seen that, too—lots of people reaping a windfall from a great opportunity, only to lose it all. It doesn’t come back, ninety-nine times out of a hundred. If you get it and lose it, it’ll be gone forever.”

  Wallace nodded. “I get that. Believe me.”

  “Good. My girl Becky, she’s the one who set you up here, right?”

  “Yeah, she’s the one who contacted me about the job.”

  “Good. She’s going to call you in two days and set up a meeting with me in Century City. You and I don’t really need to go through that, but it’s part of the ritual. Your agent, who you will definitely be able to find when you explain my proposition to them, will be expecting me to present things in a specific way. It sucks because it’s a waste of time, but unions and the like will be attached to the project and we have to conform to the usual standards. Make sure you ask your representative to get you what you want. You and I won’t do the negotiating directly, but I’m a fair-minded individual and I’ll do my best to treat you right. But your rep will have to ask for certain things, and sometimes that will mean something else will have to come off the table. Keep that in mind.”

  “I will,” Wallace said. “Would I sound like a kiss ass if I said thank you?”

  Norton laughed. “No. You’d sound like a great guy. We’ll be talking, Rob. And I hope we can do business together—I watched you d
uring the time I was here, and I think you’re one of those guys who can survive in this business.”

  Norton was good to his word. Four days later, on a Friday, Wallace had his deal. His new Hollywood agent was happy, his literary agent in New York was thrilled, and his wife was simply ecstatic. Wallace kept Norton’s advice firmly in his mind. He stayed in his house, continued driving his truck, and kept Matthew in the local school. He did lease Faye a new BMW 440, though—a guy had to do what it took to keep his wife happy.

  So at first, it was the new job that kept him busy. There was a fairly steep learning curve involved, and that precluded Wallace from spending time watching TV or reading the newspapers. There were a lot of meetings in the early preproduction days, and despite Norton’s assurances to the contrary, Wallace found his presence was required at several of these. The staff he worked with wasn’t anything like that of the cop show he’d advised; they were direct, professional, and generally easy to get along with. Wallace’s input was taken seriously, and that left him feeling deeply gratified. But it was still a lot of work. His mornings began at six o’clock, and the nights ended after eleven. He rarely saw Matthew, and by the time he got home, Faye was already asleep.

  And for that reason, Wallace was slow the see the signs of the impending zombie apocalypse. As the news of a strange virus from Eastern Europe and the Middle East began to emerge, Wallace was stuck reading scripts and going over story bibles, trying to add little gems of information that could hopefully have a far-reaching impact in the new series’ overall story line. Even though some of the production staffers discussed what was going on, Wallace remained blissfully ignorant. The fact that some strange, flu-like illness was taking root in almost every part of the globe and leaving hospitals and clinics overwhelmed with cases they couldn’t treat much less cure was initially lost on him. It wasn’t until Los Angeles itself became an infection vector in the fall that Wallace finally began paying attention. The studios were closing down, and even Norton’s production company was going on hiatus—Norton himself had suddenly disappeared for parts unknown without so much as a goodbye. But in Rancho Palos Verdes, it was easy to think nothing untoward was going on. Life was pretty much as it had always been in the Southland, and this far away from the city, change wasn’t readily apparent. But when Wallace emerged from the house one morning to pick up the newspaper—it wasn’t there—he looked out over the front lawn of the house across the street. The Pacific Ocean could be seen, blue and regal as always, framed by a great sweeping view of the Los Angeles coastline. Plumes of smoke rose into the air from several points, in Playa del Rey, Santa Monica, and even out toward the colony of Malibu. A line of Army Black Hawk helicopters thudded across the sky in a staggered formation. More worrisome, morning sunlight glinted off the flat canopies of their Apache escorts. Wallace recognized both helicopter types from working alongside Army National Guard during his time with the USBP. As he stood there, taking in the vista, he heard sirens from somewhere inside his own neighborhood. Not just a few. But many.

  What the fuck?

  He charged back into his house and turned on one of the local channels. And from the talking heads on KTTV, he learned all about the situation in Los Angeles, how the hospitals were filling up with the dead and dying, how emergency services were being strained to the breaking point, about how the governor had called the National Guard to state active duty. For two hours, he sat and watched the grim stories that rolled across the TV screen. A virus much like MERS had emerged not just from the Middle East, but also from somewhere in the vicinity of the Ukraine. Europe was fully embroiled. Larger metropolitan areas in the eastern half of the US were declaring emergencies, and New York City was in flames. There were riots in DC and Atlanta and Baltimore and Boston. And then there was the queer story floating around that no one could quite explain: an eruption of cannibalism, of all things. It didn’t make a lot of sense to Wallace, as the scope and breadth of the circumstances were potentially staggering.

  “Pretty scary, isn’t it?”

  Wallace hadn’t even noticed when Faye had drifted into the living room. She looked pale and tired, and her face was creased with a distant worry. Her normally perfectly coiffed dark hair was out of place, something he hadn’t seen since moving back to L.A.

  “I can’t believe it,” Wallace said. “Hey, where’s Matty?”

  “At school,” Faye said. “They’re talking about cancelling classes if things get worse, but—”

  Wallace was on his feet in an instant. “Yeah, things are already worse,” he said. “Do me a favor? I’m going to go over and pull him out right now. While I’m gone, get a list together of things we might need from the store,” he called over his shoulder as he hurried into the master bedroom. He walked to the closet and slid open one of the doors. On a shelf inside, hidden behind a couple of old overcoats, was a flat gray Gun Vault. He entered the vault’s four digit code on the pad, and the door snapped out. Wallace reached inside and pulled out his Springfield XDm pistol. Calibered to fire .45 ACP, the two-tone weapon was a certified monster stopper. He hadn’t thought he’d ever really need to feel it in his hand, but today was one of those days. He slipped the entire holster rig onto his right hip, then pulled out a long-sleeved T-shirt that would help conceal it. That was the problem with bigger firearms—keeping them unseen was difficult.

  “What are you doing with that?” Faye had followed him into the bedroom, concerned.

  “Things appear to be getting out of hand, babe. I might need it. It’s just a precaution,” he said.

  “You think you need a pistol to go pick up our son?”

  “Not to pick him up, but I don’t want to be without it, just in case something comes up.” Wallace stepped toward her and kissed her on the forehead. “I need that list,” he said. “You should text it to me as soon as you have it. Okay?”

  “Rob, are things really that bad?”

  Wallace thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. “I only know they aren’t very good right now,” he said. “Anyway, I’m off. Lock the doors and keep out of sight until we get back.”

  With that, he left the house and climbed into the cab of his black, half-ton Dodge Ram. The hulking pickup was still pretty much stock; he’d planned on putting in a lift and replacing the bumper and outfitting it with brush guards. All he’d been able to get done thus far was slap on a decent set of thirty-six inch off-road tires. Just the same, the big rig would be tough to slow down, and today, Wallace was doubly happy he had.

  The drive to Silver Spur Elementary School usually took less than five minutes, even including crossing the fairly busy four lanes that made up Montemalaga Drive. The residential neighborhood the Wallaces lived in was still fairly serene, but as he drove down the whitewashed streets, he noticed particular elements that struck him as out of place. Lawns that were starting to look overgrown. Days of newspapers lying out in front of several houses, along with full mailboxes. Some of the homes even looked abandoned, though there was no way for him to know if that was true. Since he’d been leaving at dawn to beat the traffic and coming back well after sundown lately, he had been genuinely oblivious to the gradual changes which had been going on. It bothered him at a certain level, because even though he was no longer with the Border Patrol, he still had genuine law enforcement experience. He should have noticed these things.

  Already living life as a fuzzy bunny in a Situation White world, pal. Congratulations.

  Montemalaga Drive was full of slow-moving traffic in both directions, and the line of cars trying to merge into the slowly-moving river of sheet metal and fiberglass was backed up almost five hundred feet from the intersection. It wasn’t even ten in the morning yet, but a lot of people were trying to get to places, many more so than he felt usual. Wallace feared that some of those places were likely Ralph’s, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and Smart & Final over in Torrance.

  “Come on, you stupid fuckers,” he said aloud, caught up in the line trying to merge into traffic
. It took almost ten minutes for him to make it to the intersection, and then another three to make it across the street. He basically had to bull his way across by pulling into the slowly moving traffic and forcing the other motorists to halt. Even though horns blared, no one tried to stop him. And if they had tried, he had the Springfield on his hip.

  Once across Montemalaga, he gunned the truck up Basswood Hill. It was only a block to the next street, where he made a quick right and then an almost immediate quick left into the school parking lot. Finding a spot was usually a pain in the ass, but today was parking pot luck day, and he had no problem. He pulled the big Dodge into a space and hopped out.

  It took some time for him to gain entry into the school, as like all learning institutions it was in a state of perpetual lockdown. Eventually, an office aide he didn’t recognize answered the doorbell and granted him admittance. By policy, he was to go to the office, sign in, and get a visitor’s badge. He didn’t bother with that. He knew where his son’s classroom was.

  “I need to pick up Matthew Wallace,” he told the aide. She was a middle-aged woman close to his age, and she looked weary and drawn out. She sniffled and touched her nose, and that sent a tingle up Wallace’s spine. “Ma’am, are you sick?” he asked, taking a step back.

  “It’s just a cold,” the woman said, and her voice was wet with mucus.

  “Fantastic,” Wallace said. “Stay away from me.” With that, he turned away from her and headed down the corridor.

  “Sir, where are you going?” The aide screeched, pausing to cough wetly into her hand. “You need to sign in!”

  “Not today,” Wallace said over his shoulder. “Call the cops if you need to.”

  “I’ll do that!”

  Wallace ignored her and stalked to Matthew’s classroom, which was only a few doors down. He looked through the window set inside the steel fire door and saw the classroom was more than half empty. For the first time, he wondered why the hell Faye had let their son go to school. He rapped on the door, and everyone turned to look. When Matthew saw his father through the small window, he smiled. The smile faded a moment later, likely as he wondered what his dad was doing standing in the hallway outside the door. Like Wallace himself, Matthew had dark hair and equally dark eyes. Thankfully, he had his mother’s fine nose, not the aquiline beak Wallace had been born with. The mix of features conspired to make the boy appear simultaneously masculine and lovely. Wallace was certain when the time came, his son was going to be a hundred percent lady killer.