Aftershock

by Andrew Vachss

  “What would I have to do to convince a girl that I was a talent scout from Hollywood?”

  “You?!” Dolly laughed so hard her eyes got teary.

  “Me” is all I said, when she finally stopped.

  “Dell …”

  “MaryLou told me that the only thing in the world Danielle cares about is being a movie star. I’m not thinking about how a talent scout would look, but what he’d know, okay?”

  “You mean, like, names to drop, stuff like that?”

  “No. Too easy to check. But I need to sound like I know people. And movies, I need to know about them, too.”

  “Give me a few hours. Some of the girls will be here by then, and I’ll dig up a lot before they even show up. You don’t have to leave until around four.”

  The rented Cadillac wasn’t as big as I’d expected, and its ground-fog paint job made it look even smaller from the outside. What I also didn’t expect was how quick it was, and how well it handled.

  I found Danielle right where Dolly said she’d be, wearing a T-shirt long enough to make you wonder if there was anything beneath it. There was still enough sunlight to take any mystery out of the question, and the ridiculous orange spike heels she was prancing around in would get even the girls in the red-light district of Marseilles pointing at her and screaming, “Salope!”

  Even if Danielle hadn’t been putting on such a show, none of the skateboarders would have glanced at me twice. I couldn’t guess at their social class. They all seemed to be wearing the same kind of uniform: short-sleeved T-shirts advertising energy drinks, and khaki pants hacked off to make shorts.

  I parked the Caddy where they could all see it, and walked down a slight slope of grass. By the time I got close to the configured concrete of the skateboard park, they were all in a bunch, watching the stranger approach.

  Three of them broke off from the crowd. I guess I wasn’t supposed to see them slip away past a squat brick building—probably public restrooms—and disappear. I didn’t care why they were taking off—by then, Danielle had wiggled her way to the front of the pack.

  I pointed at her, and made a “come here” gesture. Most girls her age would have backed away, but Danielle swivel-hipped up to me as if I was expected.

  When I handed her one of the business cards Dolly had printed up for me, she took it without a word.

  The card was a real work of art: a lot of red at the top, a much smaller piece of black at the bottom, with a wide white slash running through them at a sharp angle. Within that slash, in fancy-font black letters:

  Patrice Laveque

  Arquette Aland Film Productions, Inc.

  202 N. Robertson Blvd. · Hollywood, CA 90048

  In the red space at the top, phone and fax in the (213) area code, plus the obligatory, can’t-be-real-without-one e-mail address: PLaveque@aafpi.com.

  And in the little bit of white at the bottom:

  www.aafpi.com

  Dolly had told me the street address was in the right area, but it didn’t actually exist, the phone had the right area code, and the number would be answered by a woman with a French accent—“Moi, non?”

  And she had found out from one of the girls that Danielle had actually been in a school play. There was even a YouTube video of it.

  “But that website, I’m not sure. I checked, and there’s no such address owned by anyone, but putting one up—”

  “I can get that done,” I assured her.

  Danielle held on to the heavy-stock card like it was a holy talisman, turning it over and over in her hands. The back replicated the front—no writing, just the colors, making it look as if each band had flowed onto the other side.

  “Get the fuck away!” Danielle told one of the boarders who moved closer to us, his fists balled in some kind of sad little protective gesture. “This is business.”

  When I turned away and walked toward the Cadillac, she followed like an obedient lamb.

  I opened the door for her. She slid in and crossed her legs so that her T-shirt pulled up just far enough. The kind of maneuver she must have practiced with the same intensity with which we had learned to field-strip our weapons. For me then, and for her now, our lives depended on learning to do some things with our eyes closed.

  “Is there someplace in this … town where I might talk with you?” I asked, letting a French accent into my voice. I didn’t have to be an actor to do that.

  “I’ll show you,” Danielle said. “Just go straight ahead and turn left at the dead-end.”

  I did that. We ended up facing the ocean, without even a café in sight.

  “This?”

  “Yes. It’s the only place where we’ll have any privacy. You probably don’t realize how people in tiny little places like to gossip.”

  “That may be correct. I have spent my entire life in … I am not sure how to say in English, but places like Paris, London, New York, Los Angeles,” I replied, making sure I hit “Paris” with a native’s pronunciation. “You have my card. My assignment is to get some unenhanced tape of you.”

  “Tape of me doing what?”

  “Essentially, speaking. Acting, that is. You may pick any role you like, from any current film you have seen. In fact, if there is some role in such a film you fancy, we can get you the script easily enough.”

  “Why me?”

  “To be truthful, I do not know. My office was contacted by a director we have engaged on pay-or-play in anticipation of acquiring a certain property. When the owner of the property broke his word and took the material elsewhere, we found another screenplay we rather liked. However, we are, of necessity, on a much tighter schedule now. We were shown footage of you in what appeared to be a school play,” I said, spraying the last two words with a light coat of distaste. “Our researchers brought me here. To a place which appears to have no hotels.”

  “Oh, we do!” she assured me. “It’s not like Beverly Hills, but it overlooks the bay, and it’s really quite nice.”

  “I am sure. Ah, it does not matter. Give me the name, please.”

  She did. I took a wallet-sized cell out of my jacket, hit a speed-dial number.

  “I need a suite for tonight at the … What was that again?” I asked Danielle. “Did you hear that?” I asked the person on the other end. “Bon. Now, I want—Miss Rontempe, this is what a personal assistant does—at least one suite, two if I can get them adjoining, and I want to be able to check in within two hours, so we still have some natural light if we need it. Make sure the direct billing covers everything; I have no time to waste with some desk clerk.”

  I slapped my phone closed in an annoyed gesture. Then I turned to Danielle:

  “You are, what, eighteen, nineteen years?”

  “Nineteen,” she answered, without breaking stride.

  “Very well. You will not need parental permission to sign a contract, then. Nevertheless, please feel free to bring a parent or guardian with you. Or any adult you wish. However, I must insist they remain in the adjacent suite while I am getting you on tape.”

  “I don’t need any—”

  “I did not ask what you needed,” I said, allowing a slight edge of annoyance to surface. “I merely sought to assure you that you are taking no risk. I requested adjoining suites because some young actresses prefer their parents or whoever accompanies them not to be directly present during a screen test, but would want them close by.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought a screen test was—”

  “Yes, I am sure. That was before all the studios went to digital format. Now all we need is some ten-minute snapshot—you will either be instantly right for the role we have in mind or you will not, comprenez-vous?”

  She nodded vigorously, truly terrified she might say the wrong thing … whatever that might be.

  “Do you have a role you feel you could present yourself in?”

  “Well, I was thinking of, maybe, Chocolate Winter.”

  “Bon. What role?”

  “Rachel Razon?”<
br />
  I grabbed the phone again and ordered my hapless personal assistant to have a dozen or so pages of that script faxed to the hotel Danielle had told me about. “I will need sides in which Miss Razon had a good number of lines.” Then I hung up on her again.

  “We do not have much time,” I told Danielle, glancing at a ridiculously oversized bootleg copy of what would have been a very expensive wristwatch. “Would seven be satisfactory to you?”

  “Sure!”

  “Very well. Where shall I take you now? I know you will want to change your clothes before—”

  “For sure! I mean, I just put this on as a joke. There’s this guy who has an insane crush on me, and we wanted to gaff him.”

  I let a slight shadow of disapproval cross my face. “The address, please?”

  “Oh, I don’t need a ride. I live just down the beach from here. It’s easier for me to walk.”

  While Dolly was printing out some pages from whatever movie Danielle had yammered about, I went downstairs and checked. Either the task had been simple or the cracker had really jumped on the job:

  |> 8 probables. 4 still hospitalized or must return to VA daily, 3 physical, 1 psychiatric. 2 KIA. 1 serving a 12-year sentence, manslaughter, imposed 01, but crime occurred 99. Remaining: Ryan Teller. No citations. Discharged OTH. “Personality Disorder,” which *could* be PTSD, common military tactic first used for Gulf vets. Driver license shows address that cannot still be correct—entire area burned in a forest fire in 04. 3 arrests, 2 in 05, 1 in 06. Charges dismissed on all but 06. DUI crash. Driver of other car died at scene. Subject sentenced to 5 years probation. Civil suit filed. Not contested by subject; judgment of US$4.5 million remains outstanding. No land-line or cell account under his name. No indication of employment. No bank accounts. Any asset listed in subject’s name would be seized by judgment-holder. Any employment income would be subject to garnishment. No interest by FBI or CIA. Assumed to be living with some woman, all bills in her name, and working off-the-books job. Note: those assumptions from FBI informant files, so accuracy not considered highest quality. <|

  “I have to work this alone,” I told Dolly. “She’s never seen me, but she could have seen you.”

  “I got all the stuff you asked for. And the reservations have already been made. But you can’t run that videocam by yourself, Dell. Even with the tripod.”

  “Yeah, I can, honey. Don’t fuss. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

  “This is just a yes-or-no question, Franklin. Will you do something to help MaryLou?”

  “Yes!”

  I didn’t expect him to ask for details. “Okay,” I told him. “All you have to do is listen. You’re going to be in a hotel room. Sitting on one side of a wall. Danielle, MaryLou’s little sister, she’s going to be on the other side of that same wall. She’ll be recorded, but she might later lie and claim she never said anything. Then you’d have to go to court and tell what she actually said. You wouldn’t have to tell anything but the truth. Can you do that?”

  “Sure!”

  “There’s also a bunch of equipment we have to set up. Some of it’s pretty heavy. Probably not for you, but it would be for me if I had to do it myself.”

  “I can move stuff.”

  “I know you can, Franklin. And MaryLou said she knew I could count on you, too.”

  He was still beaming when I pulled away, telling him I’d be back in an hour.

  The hotel’s security system consisted of a peephole in the door. It was only two stories high, with each unit in duplex style, so renting two adjoining “suites” gave us a total of four quadrants of controlled space.

  The view from the terrace overlooking the bay was drab. Opening the sliding glass doors cured me of ever doing that again—dead fish don’t do any better in intense sunlight than human corpses, and the blazing ball was taking its own sweet time dropping below the Pacific horizon.

  We were a little pressed for time—I’d told Danielle the test was at seven, and I figured she’d be early. But Franklin took all the tension away by lifting ridiculous amounts of weight like they were cartons of bubble-wrap. We had all the equipment hooked up, tested, and running, with Franklin installed on his side of the second-story wall, still with a good half-hour to spare.

  She was about ten minutes early, her knock confident and assured. It didn’t surprise me that she’d come alone.

  This time she was dressed in a black jersey V-neck sheath, with a short skirt that was just on the right side of decorous, and matching pumps that she handled a lot better than those stripper-spikes she’d worn to the skateboard park.

  By then, she would have checked out www.aafpi.com and been shocked by the truly impressive list of films with which the bogus company had been “associated,” as well as the “talent” it had both discovered and developed, never mind the overseas representation of stars whose names Dolly assured me any teenage girl would recognize.

  Danielle could only access the site by using the “private password” I’d written on the back of my business card. My expert had answered my request with an artist’s contempt:

  |> If satisfied with template, provide filler. If secure certificate required, 3 minutes after receipt. If not, 2 minutes. <|

  Since no one else would know of the site’s existence, and it was way too early for it to be picked up on any random search, it would already be either overloaded or one-time-accessed, depending on Danielle’s personality.

  I ushered Danielle into the suite, asked her to have a seat while I made some final adjustments. If Franklin couldn’t hear us both by ten after seven, he would thump on the wall. I hoped that didn’t happen, because then I’d have to come up with a good excuse to leave for a few minutes. Besides, I wasn’t sure these walls would hold Franklin’s idea of a “thump.”

  I started playing my role immediately, with “I would offer you a drink, but …”

  “Oh, that’s no problem,” she assured me.

  “Perhaps not for you,” I said, with that touch of asperity the French specialize in. “Pour moi, servir de l’alcool à un mineur est inacceptable.”

  “Sure. I mean, I party—I mean, drink—sometimes, but I don’t, like, need one. I just meant I can be sociable if the occasion calls for it.”

  Remember! I admonished myself. Don’t let the outfit fool you. You’re not just dealing with some slutty little girl here—she’s got a heavyweight IQ.

  “Bon,” I said, handing her the printed-out pages from Chocolate Winter. “Now, if you will just—”

  The incoming call on my cell came exactly on time.

  “No,” I told my personal assistant, “that is not acceptable. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to run all over the country to these godforsaken places every time A.A. hears some rumor about which actress is going to be the next big thing?”

  I listened as my personal assistant whispered something Danielle couldn’t pick up even if her ears had been shotgun microphones.

  “Ah! Wait, I will ask.”

  I turned to Danielle. “Your full name is …?”

  “Danielle. Only I spell it ‘Danyelle.’ That way, you can split it into two names if that works better, see?”

  “Yes. Your full name, please.”

  “Danielle Denise McCoy,” she said, looking more subdued by the second.

  “Oui,” I said into the phone. “It is as you say.”

  “Is anything—?” Danielle started to say, but snapped her jaw closed so quickly I could hear the click when I held up my hand for silence.

  “This is his latest high-concept?” I said into the phone.

  Silence.

  “Very well,” I said. Then turned to Danielle. “Do you have an agent?”

  “I … Not now, I don’t.”

  “Oh,” I said, pretending I’d been taken in by the implication that her last agent had proved himself unsatisfactory in some way.

  I went back to the phone. “I was specifically told that this was not a vérité project.” Pau
se. “Yes, I do realize that the company is capable of more than—Ah, never mind. I will present it to la jeune fille. If she agrees, I will call back when the test is complete and we have examined the raw footage. If she does not, I will call, and you can book me”—glancing at my silly wristwatch—“on the latest flight to LAX. I am not going to spend a night at some airport hotel ever again.”

  I slapped the phone closed. Either Danielle was getting more anxious by the second, or she was a better actress than even she thought she was.

  “Your sister is MaryLou McCoy?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “You do understand that she is going to be quite famous. Or, I should say, ‘infamous.’ ”

  “I guess so.”

  “Well, the gifted artiste who runs our company is convinced that a documentary of the case, from start to finish, would be very well received. And, more important, we want to be in a position where any fictionalized version would have the same focal point.”

  When she gave me a doe-eyed look, I changed tone, talking down to her, as if I was disappointed with her lack of knowledge of “the industry.”

  “You remember Monster, yes?” I said, grateful for Dolly’s skillful coaching. (“Remember, honey. When it doubt, just act as snotty and superior as you can pull off. The French accent will be a help there.”) “It only won Charlize Theron an Oscar. But there were several other so-called docudramas which preceded it. One had Park Overall—who, frankly, is a more gifted actress than Ms. Theron—fittingly playing the more difficult role of Wuornos’s girlfriend, Tyria Moore. But the sole actual documentary provided the impetus for a big-budget effort. I refer to Nick Broomfield’s work, Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer, which preceded the film by a good ten years!

  “In any event, the concept—the concept as of ten minutes ago”—I half-sneered—“is now to have you star in the docu, and then be the logical candidate for the same role in the more highly stylized ‘based on’ version. If we move quickly enough, then we won’t have to pay some hack writer for the rights to some useless book. And, be assured, they will be flocking to your sister’s trial like pigs to a trough.”