The Stakes

by Ben Sanders

  They’d met in ’97. Bobby had scored work on Bloodhunter as an extra. He was a nuke-frazzled cabdriver, briefly visible as the steroid-pumped hero who checks out a wrecked L.A. The scene got cut, but it let him cross paths with Charles Stone. He saw him on set at the Fox lot, and then again two days later, getting into his car by the Stone Studios office. Bobby knew he hated walk-ups, but he went and spoke to him anyway. He’d planned on small talk, but it didn’t transpire: he just stood in front of the guy and asked for more work.

  In those days, Charles was pre-Nina and pre-rehab. He checked Bobby out carefully, a head-to-toe scan, put a hand on his shoulder and told him he was loaded on whiskey and coke. If Bobby wanted a job, he could drive him home.

  Why not? A quick hundred bucks, and he got to drive a Mercedes. Charles was still in the Mulholland place back then, and when they pulled up he said another DUI would really screw him—if Bobby wanted to play chauffeur again, there was a guesthouse out back. Be ready at nine thirty tomorrow. Bobby said that sounded fine. He’d been unsure what Charles meant by “whiskey and coke”—whether he preferred the soda or the powder.

  That was all clarified in due course, as the guesthouse had a view across the pool to the main living room, and for two hours he could see through the French doors as Charles downed Johnnie Walker with a half-dozen lines on the side.

  There was plenty more driving—chauffeur work, and then courier duty, too. Charles’s drug habit was an economy in black duffels. He’d load up a bag of cash, and Bobby would take it down to a guy in the Valley, swap it for a load of coke. It wasn’t until he’d made the trip three or four times that he realized he’d go to prison if he was pulled over. He stopped by Charles’s office on the Fox lot and told him his payments should reflect his risk. Charles was bloodshot, half-lidded, slack-jawed. Common symptoms, and they could’ve meant last night was huge, or this morning was heavier than usual. Charles rubbed his gum with a finger and said, “How far do you want to take that principle?”

  Bobby didn’t answer. He didn’t know what he meant.

  Charles said, “I got as much risk as you want. And there’s plenty of reward, too. You just got to tell me when you want out.”

  So there was the issue: he never said stop. And when you’re on forty grand a month, there’s a big incentive to not think too carefully. Or at least keep any moralism on hold.

  He paid cash for his car, the subpenthouse apartment in Century City, his wedding to Connie five years ago. She was an actress, and he’d seen her at Charles’s parties and around the studio a few times—even in crowds she could catch his eye—but it took him two months before he finally asked her to dinner.

  They went to Spago in Beverly Hills, and he drank enough to reach the point of zero inhibition. He told her he was a failed actor and that the closest he came to movies was dropping off Charles Stone at his office. He knew it was a good confession—the look of slight amusement as she listened, as if all she heard was false modesty. He asked about her own career, whether hanging out at studios had brought her any work. He thought he’d torn it with that last line, making her sound like a cult groupie or something, but she told him she frequented studios only for the good-looking men.

  They married four months later.

  It was a month posthoneymoon before he realized it wouldn’t last—that fighting full-time didn’t count as happiness.

  With a split imminent, her death seemed like Bobby’s fault: like God had leant an ear and heard the breakup pleas. Put the drugs in her system and sent her off the balcony. She was so high she was limp and silent the whole way, like she was already dead when she left the rail. He was never going to lose that image, and he’d never forget being there too late—nothing he could do but scream at the drop. Even watching felt like free fall.

  He thought he’d never get over it. He’d had to buy a ground-floor condo. He’d find himself staring at the view from the edge, thinking this would be a good way to join her.

  These days he worried he’d see her soon whether he jumped or not. He still had the six-figure pay, but he had the risk, too. For a long time it felt like there was nothing on the line. Maybe that was just a normal part of youth: that false certainty that your life wasn’t on the risk ledger. But then he shot Frank Garcia’s man, Lenny Burke, that day on the boat with Nina, and finally he could see the stakes. The jeopardy didn’t stop at him. Payback could harm his mother. He wondered why knowledge so basic hadn’t shown up sooner. Nothing that important should come crashing down on you, too late to make a difference.

  * * *

  A text message woke him: the flight was with Billion Air—a private outfit that flew out of Burbank. Charles had dirt on the CFO that had secured cut-price fares for a decade.

  It was three A.M. He browsed the internet on his phone. News updates delayed him twenty minutes before he flicked to his Nina photos. The portrait shots had come up well. The reflections were minor, and the focus was perfect. He’d studied them last night on the drive home, every stoplight another look. She was locked in his head now, making false memories: he could see her in place of Connie, a face swap for all their big moments. That dinner at Spago, their wedding and the honeymoon. The Daydream Nina trying to phase out his dead wife.

  That couldn’t be all bad.

  He was out of bed at three thirty, feeling rough with lack of sleep. He showered and dressed and put the TV on to try and reset his head. His thoughts were in a weird state. He jumped from Daydream Nina to the Grim Reaper. There had to be middle ground, no anxiety or fantasy. New York could fix it. The city that made dreams could solve his payback woes and bring him Nina. Anxiety gone, fantasy promoted to the real thing. He wouldn’t even need the photos.

  He put the TV on low and wandered to kill time. The condo was way bigger than he needed: four bedrooms, and a Jacuzzi tub in his bathroom. He used a bedroom as an office. It was full of framed Stone Studios crap that Charles had given him—posters from the Bloodhunter TV spinoff, obscure B-grade films that Bobby had never heard of. He would’ve tossed it all, but it helped with impressions. His mother thought they were the hallmarks of Hollywood success. He’d moved her in the day he saved Nina on the boat, told her there’d been a terrorist threat to the studio—possibly from ISIS. He told her he was following an FBI edict. She’d been easy to persuade. She’d lived in fear of Muslims for about twenty years.

  He knocked on her bedroom door.

  “Is that you?”

  He said, “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “Just give me a minute.”

  He went into the kitchen and turned on the coffee machine. He didn’t see the point of it—a two-foot cube that served no function other than putting fluffy milk in your caffeine. But it was a gift from Charles, and anything from Charles was a twofold burden: the thing itself, and the obligation to use it.

  He was drinking a cappuccino when she joined him. She wore two gowns and a scarf even at this time of year, the garments trapped close by folded arms, and she swayed as she moved, as if she’d walked miles from her bedroom.

  She said, “It’s bad luck wearing hats indoors.”

  She told him that a lot, but it was easier not to query these rulings.

  She said, “You tilt it back more, people can see your face. Much nicer.”

  He didn’t answer, let her come over and fuss with his tie, brush nonexistent lint off his shoulder. It was a routine she couldn’t break. He’d never worn a suit she couldn’t improve.

  He said, “I have to go to New York for a few days.”

  She touched his elbows as she leaned back to appraise him. “Okay. That sounds nice.”

  She took a mug from a cupboard and held it two-handed as it filled at the machine, standing slightly hunched as if she needed the warmth. He didn’t know if it was feigned or genuine—this thing about always feeling frozen. Maybe she thought there was a role to play, the elderly mother growing delicate and needy, the child turned caregiver, life adhering to some mapped symmetry.

>   He said, “I don’t want you to leave the building while I’m away—”

  “Why, what’s wrong?”

  “I’ll order the groceries online and have them sent to reception—”

  “What’s wrong?” The machine finished with a groan and a click.

  He said, “You don’t need to worry about it. It’s bullshit, but I have to follow instructions.”

  Let her build the story: the best excuses were of others’ making, tales he could nod to.

  She said, “Is it this terrorist thing?” Then quieter: “With the Muslims?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Have they hurt someone?”

  “They haven’t told me details. They just said stay home, and you’ll be fine. I don’t think it’s serious, but it’s bad P.R. if someone’s beheaded.”

  “They won’t look here though?”

  He shook his head. “Nobody knows this is mine.”

  She stood with a hip to the counter, looking pained, holding her mug close as if for comfort. He knew the drama of it appealed: she had peripheral contact with the stuff of headlines, the forces that shape eras. What a thrill. All she had to do was stay home and watch Kardashians.

  He said, “I’ve got three days of meetings, so we’ll reassess when I’m back. I’m supposed to get a briefing tomorrow.”

  That was good: like he was owed courtesy, made privy to hard data. He wondered how she’d frame it, what she’d tell herself about his trip. She’d seen him in the small print of movie posters that never bore his name—on that basis she could make his “meetings” with anyone. Maybe he was catching up with old presidents.

  He finished his coffee, and she started on a long theory about how this was the revenge of ISIS, payback for the studio’s depiction of women. They didn’t like girls being uncovered and empowered. He zoned out fast. He rinsed his mug and went and fetched his bag from his room. He was sick of walking in circles. He might as well drive to kill time. He went back to the kitchen and his mother was still there, monologue complete, cradling her drink and looking at him with eyebrows raised.

  She said, “You agree?”

  “Yeah. Totally.”

  She hobbled to the living room and lowered herself to a sofa, lots of wince and caution. She and the leather sighed in unison. She changed the channel from news to faux reality: plastic-looking people trading gossip over coffee. She’d settled into house arrest already. The danger was abstract, negated.

  He was living one excuse at a time, but he’d made it this far. Now he just had to draft the next mistruth, decide how he’d get her out of here.

  He kissed her cheek and headed out.

  * * *

  He was up at Burbank by four thirty. He left the car in the Billion Air lot off Thornton, and a stretch limo took him around to the private gate on West Empire, and then out across the tarmac to the private terminal. A trio of bleach-white Gulfstream jets were being refueled, and there was a rank of four stretch limos lined up nearby. It looked billionaire-appropriate.

  The driver let him out ten feet from the terminal door, and he went inside to the waiting area. The rich were trusted travelers: no security, just a smiling attendant at a check-in desk, and then nothing but leather furniture and free food. He gave the attendant his details, and she told him he was the first to arrive.

  “I thought I had a plane to myself.”

  “No, sir. Mr. Stone booked two others in your party.”

  It made sense five minutes later: another limousine pulled up, and Charles’s head of security got out, along with another guy Bobby recognized from last night. They’d swapped their ballistics gear for suits and ties.

  Bobby said, “Chrissake,” and headed outside to the tarmac with his bag, into the high whine of turbofans on idle, and a deeper rumble farther off as a 737 lifted off the runway. He climbed the shaking steps to their appointed Gulfstream, into a cocoon of leather and that metal taste of bottled air, like a taste of the future—the morning-breath of androids. A beaming pilot with a flawless tan welcomed him aboard. Bobby took out his phone and headed for the tail as he dialed Charles.

  “Bobby, what do you want?”

  “I didn’t know you were sending minders. I thought the whole point was I’m tidying this up myself.”

  Charles gave him dead air. Bobby ducked for a porthole view and saw the two guys heading out to join him, carrying their own bags, two duffels apiece—probably guns galore.

  Charles said, “So what’s the fucking problem? You got backup, big deal.”

  “Who’s watching your place?”

  “I got other people.”

  Bobby said, “I don’t like doing jobs with guys I don’t know.”

  “Holy shit, grow a pair. It’s my job, I get to use my people. I thought that’d be simple enough to wrap your head around.”

  He didn’t answer.

  Charles said, “Is it that you don’t trust them, or you don’t trust yourself to act like a normal human being?”

  “It’s a hierarchy thing. Is someone in charge, or are we all meant to run around doing what we like?”

  “No, I think it’s called cooperation. Look, don’t call me up expecting I’m going to make you scout leader or something. I don’t give a shit about who does what, so long as everything’s fixed. So why don’t you give me a call when you got something good to tell me.”

  He heard the tone go flat in his ear, and then the first guy was at the top of the stairs, smiling at Bobby like he’d guessed the nature of the call.

  Bobby said, “I thought I was flying solo.”

  The guy took a seat midway down, facing aft. It was a plush setup: cream leather chairs in bays of two-by-two, with an aisle down the center. He nodded at Bobby’s phone and said, “Thought you might change the old boy’s mind?”

  Bobby didn’t answer. The guy had a heavy accent, Eastern European. He sat down opposite him, saw the second man appear at the top of the stairs.

  The first guy said, “Charles said to tell you we’re the best backup money can buy. So be grateful.”

  “Question is, does the backup do as it’s told?”

  The guy ignored him, looked idly out the porthole. He said mildly, “Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you properly. I’m Marko.” He tilted his head at his companion as the second guy took a seat across the aisle. “This is Luka.” He opened the drinks compartment in the panel next to them, lifted out a bottle of mineral water, and opened it with a muted crack. He said, “People always say you’re the hat man, and now I get why it sticks.” He nodded at Bobby. “It’s not just the hat, it’s the fucking stare that goes with it.” He had some water and said, “Like a psychopath looking past a razor or something.”

  The pair of them spoke briefly in a foreign dialect and laughed. They both had a lean and weathered look that made it hard to guess their age. They could have been anywhere between thirty-five and fifty.

  A steward came through and asked for drinks orders. Bobby kept his eyes on Marko and said that he was fine. The other two passed as well. The steward caught the vibe and backed off, ran through the safety check from the front of the plane. Luka hooked up earbuds and closed his eyes. Marko returned Bobby’s stare while the steward told them crisis protocols.

  The plane began to taxi.

  Marko said, “Don’t think we’re just tagging along as extra baggage while you bring the trophy wife back. We know what we’re doing.”

  “Sure.”

  Marko smiled. “All I know is the bitch has financial aspirations of her own. So if she’s double-crossed Mr. Stone, I’m not going to be happy.”

  Financial aspirations. Maybe Frank Garcia had tipped him off …

  Bobby said, “You mean Nina’s going to be in trouble? Good luck.”

  Marko held the wall to brace himself on a corner. The plane straightened up and he said, “I don’t know what you’re getting out of this. But the prevailing opinion of Bobby Deen is that you hang around Charles Stone because you like his wife
an awful lot.”

  Bobby didn’t answer.

  Marko said, “So you just be thankful we keep our observations to ourselves. Word got out, he might make you fly United.”

  “You can tell him what you like.”

  Marko shrugged. “All right. But are you coming along to bring her back, or are you coming along to get in her pants?”

  Bobby didn’t answer. They were both looking at him now, the second man’s eyes fixed on him from across the aisle.

  The plane roared as it accelerated.

  The takeoff pinned him to his seat.

  EIGHT

  NEW YORK, NY

  Miles Keller

  Police had bland parlance for everything, killings included, so the event that had made his life come apart was simply an officer-involved shooting. A phone call set it in motion: a Sixty-seventh Precinct watch commander got in touch to say that a confidential informant was trying to reach him. The CI’s name was Lucy Gates. Miles hadn’t seen her in six years, but he called her anyway.

  He said, “Thing about being a confidential informant, you’re not meant to tell people you’re a confidential informant.”

  “Yeah, nice to talk to you, too.” She sounded out of breath, but he didn’t know then what it meant. She said, “What they don’t tell you, once you don’t want to play the snitch game anymore, they don’t want to hear from you. You call the number and ask for the transfer, nothing happens. You call the precinct direct though, they go on about how you’re not meant to call them, and there’s a special number. Maybe you could get them all to sit down together and figure that one out.”

  Miles said, “How can I help you?”

  “There’s a car outside my house that’s been there for three days.”

  He said, “Call nine-one-one,” and left it at that.

  She called him back twenty minutes later.

  She said, “Look. This isn’t some bullshit tactic to win sympathy. I already called nine-one-one, each time they come past he’s already gone.”

  “You think I’ll have better luck?”

  “Oh God.” He let her have a moment. She said, “You remember I told you once, there was a guy used to come by the bar, sit there with a drink just staring all the time? Told you he looked like a pervert, you said he was probably a hit man?”