the Devil's Workshop (1999)

by Stephen Cannell

  "Thanks, Clancy."

  Clancy nodded and watched while Cris opened the door of the Lincoln, started the engine, and drove off.

  Cris didn't know where to go. He didn't have anybody he trusted. He drove around aimlessly for hours. He craved a drink, but instead made his mind blank and thought about Kennidi. Poor helpless Kennidi. He wouldn't let himself think about his hurt, his pain; he focused only on hers. He would seek vengeance for her. Several times he slowed as he saw bars. One had a neon sign, which pictured a glass that filled with neon liquor. He must have watched that glass fill twenty times. He almost went in, but forced his thoughts back to Kennidi. "Daddy, hold me. Daddy, it hurts so much." Cris slammed down on the accelerator and the Lincoln roared away, up the street.

  At midnight, he found himself back at Stacy's apartment. He knocked, and after a long time, the light came on. The door opened and she was standing there in her bathrobe.

  "Where have you been?" she said. "I called your house ..."

  "I... I had to go see a friend."

  They stood looking at one another. She thought he looked different, weaker, even more unhealthy and fragile.

  "I know we don't know each other very well," he said softly, "but I can't go home. It's a long story, but I need a place to flop. Could I use your couch?"

  She stood there in the doorway for a long moment, hesitant.

  "I've decided I want to help you get Admiral Zoll," he said. "I want to get him for what he did to Kennidi."

  After a moment of appraisal she unlatched the door and let him in.

  Chapter 24

  GUNFIGHT AT THE I'M OK, YOU'RE OK CORRAL

  He was carrying three loaves of baked bread; one was whole wheat, one was a rich brown multi-grain, and one was some sort of black bread the color of a Hershey's chocolate bar. Of course, he was on a no-carb diet and was strictly prohibited from eating bread.

  His son, Mike, was walking beside him. They were going to look at a new house, and a Realtor magically appeared, opened the door, then disappeared. They walked into the place alone. The house had no yard; in fact, there was no property at all. It was artfully suspended between two high stone canyons. The living-room floor was a metal grate, perched thousands of feet above a valley. Somehow Buddy and Michael could walk on the grate without falling through, but the effect was unsettling. Below them stretched a horizon as far as the eye could see. There was also a pool that hung suspended, but it was empty, formed out of the same metal grates.

  "Don't worry, Dad, it's a fixer-upper, but we can do it. Once we get furniture and some flooring, it's gonna be great."

  His son was now standing next to him. Close to him. Buddy craved closeness. He craved unconditional love. Nobody ever loved Buddy. They tolerated him, or partnered with him, and sometimes slept with him, but love was never the reason. Money was the glue. Then unexpectedly, Michael put an arm around Buddy's shoulder and squeezed him lovingly, easing Buddy's longing, taking away the ache.

  "A project for both of us. Aren't you gonna eat your bread, Dad?"

  "My nutritionist says I'm not supposed to eat carbs," Buddy said. "Strictly off my diet."

  They walked up to the "picture window," which had no glass, and stood on the heart-stopping grates, somehow not falling out of the house through the floor. They marveled at the spectacular view, but when Buddy looked down, his stomach lurched. Thousands of feet below, the green valley beckoned. It was fertile land, ripe with promise.

  "Y'know, Dad, I bet if we worked on the house together, we'd learn to love each other.... Aren't you gonna eat any bread?"

  "All my life I've been on some diet," he told his son. "All my life, I've been hungry, trying to be what I'm not. Maybe that's why you and I could never find each other. I was always pretending to be an outlaw, a rebel. It's what I thought everybody wanted from me, but I was just acting." And then the difficult admission: "Underneath, I'm always scared, Michael."

  "Call me Juan, Dad. I go by Juan now."

  Buddy nodded. He was starving; he wondered what the rich black loaf would taste like. When Michael looked away, he snuck a bite of the bread It was surprisingly good, and tasted just as he'd hoped... a sweet, rich chocolate flavor. As he chewed, he knew he had been wrong. He never should have rejected his son. If he had loved Michael unconditionally, then Michael would be the one who'd naturally love him back. How could he have been blind to that before? After all, Michael was his son, his flesh and blood.

  As he realized this, he felt tears of gratitude. Then he heard screaming, looked up, and saw that Mike was way too far out on the edge of the suspended pool. His arms were pinwheeling. He was falling forward, off balance. His screams got louder, more hysterical.

  "Mike, what're you doing?" Buddy yelled, tears still welling in his eyes. He tried to run toward his only son, juggling the loaves of bread. He thought he could pull him back by grabbing his shirt using his one free hand, but he could not run on the tricky grates. Although before he had walked easily across them, now his feet fell clumsily between. He went down, almost plummeting through himself. His son was falling... falling out of the house, right through the grates in the bottom of the pool, getting smaller. Buddy couldn't move, but he could see Mike's diminishing form. The son he had never cared about but now longed for was screaming in terror, and for some unknown reason, he was screaming in Spanish. "Dios mio! Dios mioI" Mike wailed.

  "I'm sorry," Buddy yelled to his disappearing son. "I'm sorry I couldn't get there. We could have fixed the house. We could have loved each other." His screams mixed with Mike's.

  Buddy sat bolt upright. "I'm sorry ... !"

  He was on his bed in Malibu, screaming at the top of his lungs, tears wet on his face. For a minute he didn't know where he was. His arms were across his chest, still clutching his invisible loaves of bread. His heart was beating fast. Suddenly, he stopped screaming and was quiet, but he could still hear Mike crying out in Spanish. He was far away. Buddy's head snapped around toward the bedroom balcony windows. He was disoriented. His conscious mind was fighting to take control, as the distant screams continued.

  "Mike?" he said softly.

  Then he realized he'd been in an extremely vivid dream. The suspended house, the three loaves of bread, and his dead son were all gone. Only the distant screams remained. "Dios mio/' a woman's voice pleaded. He realized it was his Mexican maid, Consuelo. She was outside somewhere, out by the pool, screaming for somebody not to shoot. "No me dispare, porfavor!" she pleaded.

  He got out of bed and moved uncertainly to the window. He could see Gary Iverson down by the pool. For some crazy reason, Gary had a gun in his right hand and was waving it at Consuelo, who was on her knees, begging him not to kill her. Gary pointed the gun at her head as Buddy snatched open the balcony door.

  "The fuck you doing, Iverson?" he yelled.

  Without hesitation, Gary spun and fired the pistol at him. The pane right next to Buddy's head shattered. Glass shards rained against his bare shoulders.

  "Fuck!" Buddy yelled as he ducked for cover inside the house. Then he heard Gary screaming, and Consuelo pleading. "What the fuck?" Buddy whispered, his half-asleep mind racing to catch up with a shitload of adrenaline that had just hit his heart like a shot of ice water.

  Buddy had one of the most extensive gun collections in Hollywood. He loved guns. He even had a gun dealer's license, which he got when he was in pre-production on Grunt, a Vietnam War epic he'd made at Columbia. He'd cherry-picked the prop department for the best ordnance. He had a U. S. M203, which was a single-shot pump grenade launcher, and five hot pineapples to go with it. He had an M60 machine gun called a "pig," and a selection of mini-lights, including the MP5, and the LMG version of the AUG machine gun. He also had a selection of Russian ordnance: the PKM-7 machine gun and the MG3. He had another whole case full of handguns: Glocks and Kochs, Brownings and Berettas. Although his war collection was mostly late-seventies stuff, he had sophisticated laser sights on a lot of them, and always kept his guns loaded
.

  Buddy would tell guests at his Hollywood parties that he just prayed some wired-up, celebrity-stalking fanatic would try for him, sounding like a ballsy hero from one of his action pictures. He would often field-strip a weapon in front of his coked-out guests, talking trash, while he tore the piece down. 'Til kill the motherfucker if I'm ever transgressed," he'd promised, his eyes shining with a deadly mixture of cocaine and testosterone.

  Now, with Consuelo screaming in the yard and glass splinters from Gary's quickly aimed shot still pricking his shoulders, his ballsy resolve evaporated. His hands were shaking. His dick crawled up inside him and his asshole slammed shut.

  He was at his gun cabinet, clawing for his new short-barrel Colt Commander with the state-of-the-art Sentry Laser-Lite sight and the filed-down two-ounce trigger pull. He tromboned the weapon, inadvertently ejecting the live round that had already been chambered onto the carpet at his feet. He snapped off the safety and clicked on the laser sight. A red pinpoint of light appeared on the carpet near his bare feet. He heard another gunshot, then Consuelo screamed in agony. As Buddy moved away from the cabinet, he saw that his Charter Arms Mark II target pistol was missing. Buddy was now cowering under a window, afraid to risk his life by exposing his head to look down again at the pool. Consuelo was still crying and pleading in Spanish.

  He scrambled to his feet and ran downstairs. He was in one of his silk thong briefs, which Heidi Fleiss had given him last Christmas before her trial. When he had tried it on for her, she had told him the pouched thong made him look "killer." He always wore one to bed. Now it made him feel stupid and unprotected. He was in the living room, wondering if he should just run to the garage, take the Porsche, and split. Fuck Consuelo, he thought, I'm at risk here! She doesn't even have papers. It's every man for himself Then he saw movement out the plate-glass window. Gary was standing on the pool deck, his back to Buddy, screaming insanities at Consuelo, who Buddy could now see had indeed been hit in the arm, near the shoulder. She was seated on the pool deck beyond, crying, begging for her life. The dim pool lights gave eerie cinema verite ambience to the area.

  Then Iverson aimed again at Consuelo. Before the crazed doctor could pull the trigger, Buddy cringed and flinched. Because of the Colt's hair trigger, he inadvertently squeezed off a round. The shot shattered the living-room window near where Gary was standing. The slug bounced off the pavement and whined away into the Malibu night, splashing harmlessly in the ocean a hundred yards beyond the surf line.

  "Fuck! Oh fuck, oh fuck!" Buddy screamed, as Gary turned and faced him through the now glassless opening. Buddy had never seen such confusion, terror, or craziness in another man's eyes. It was even worse than when Jack Nicholson, zooted on uppers, had taken a fire ax to Buddy's desk at Warners after he'd seen the re-cut on Dead Before Dawn.

  Gary's eyes were terrifying.

  "Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck," Buddy kept saying, the laser sight on the forgotten Colt Commander burning a red dot in the carpet.

  Gary Iverson aimed the Charter Arms Mark II at Buddy. He was yelling something. Buddy strained to make out the words, but couldn't.

  Then Buddy was moving, screaming in terror as he went, with no idea where he was going. Gary had him in his sights; he would never escape.

  Gary fired just as Buddy tripped over the marble coffee table. The bullet whined past his right ear, missing him.

  "Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Buddy screamed at nobody. Then he got up and ran into the kitchen. "Help! Help me! Please!" The Colt Commander was still at his side, as he was fumbling for the phone to dial 911. Then his heart froze. Gary was clawing at the back door. Buddy turned and screamed at the door, "Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Why are you doing this?"

  A shot shattered the lock, and then Gary kicked the door open.

  Buddy had both hands out in front of him to ward off the certain killshot. He knew he was scant seconds from death.

  "Don't shoot! Please, Gary... please! I'm your friend, man! I love you!" Then he saw a strange red dot between and slightly above Gary Iverson's eyes. It was sitting there like the ruby on Cleopatra's forehead. Buddy wasn't sure what it was.

  Then Gary cocked his pistol.

  Buddy spasmed in fear. The Colt Commander kicked unexpectedly in his hands and Iverson flew backward, out the kitchen door, landing on his back on the pavement. The new transplant plugs that Buddy had paid for, and half of Gary's forehead, were now missing.

  "Fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck," Buddy mantraed, still in the kitchen, not sure exactly what had happened. Then he saw the gun in his outstretched hand, and realized that he had again pulled the hair trigger. He moved on weak, unsteady legs out the back door, where Gary now lay dead. He looked down at the doctor, who had written the prescriptions that had kept them both in a drugstore daze for the last two years.

  Buddy's teeth were chattering; his bare ass felt cold from a panic sweat that was drying on his cheeks in the chilly air. A clammy sweet-sour aftertaste lingered in his mouth like the memory of rotten chocolate bread.

  ''Muchas gracias, senor,'' Consuelo was blubbering from ten yards away. She was still on the pool deck, holding her bleeding arm.

  Buddy's knees wouldn't stop shaking. He didn't think he would be able to keep standing, so he walked over and sat on a nearby pool chair, never taking his eyes off Gary Iverson's body. He tried to steady himself. He was trembling uncontrollably, but euphoric to be alive. He took several deep breaths to calm down. For a long time, he just looked down at the lifeless doctor.

  "Transgress me, you motherfucker," he finally growled at the dead body.

  Chapter 25

  JEW

  How and why this shooting took place are still pretty much a mystery, Steve," field reporter Shannon Morrison said. She was standing in front of the gate of Buddy Brazil's multimillion-dollar Malibu Colony home. "The body was wheeled out at about six A. M., and the police left a few minutes ago. The way the bizarre story pieces together: Dr. Gary Iverson, a Long Beach pediatrician, who had been living in famous 'bad boy' producer Buddy Brazil's pool house, apparently went crazy around midnight last night and tried to kill Mr. Brazil's maid"--she glanced at her notes--"Consuelo Gutierrez. The Oscar-winning producer heard gunshots and Miss Gutierrez's screams, then got a pistol from his gun cabinet and apparently saved Miss Gutierrez's life, shooting the doctor out by his pool. This strange incident occurred just hours after Buddy Brazil's son's body was inexplicably stolen from the Santa Monica morgue."

  The TV shot switched to Steve Edwards, seated at his in-studio desk at KTTV in Los Angeles. Steve shook his head in dismay.

  "Any idea if those two events are connected, Shannon? It would seem they must be."

  "Again, Steve, it's all very tentative right now, so we'll have to wait until the police issue their statement. Possibly, one connection, according to neighbors, was that Dr. Iverson had been heavily involved in drugs, and had recently been to Windsong Ranch in Montana to take the cure. Michael Brazil also had a history of drug arrests when he lived here with his father two summers ago. But for right now, people out here in this secluded Malibu beach community are calling Buddy Brazil a hero for saving Consuelo Gutierrez's life, and it would certainly seem that's exactly what he is."

  Similar reports were on every local channel and all the network news shows. There were "file" shots of Buddy with famous actresses smiling at premiers, waving at the press, showing his tanned, surgically enhanced face and white-capped teeth. They spewed out lists of his hit movies, along with opening weekend grosses. He was called a hero, a handsome hero, the bad-boy producer with the golden touch, a romantic outlaw. And on and on it went....

  Upstairs in his bedroom, Buddy was watching it all from his bed, with the covers pulled up around his chin. He had been forced to endure the police for almost three hours. Thank God, he thought, that dumb bitch, Consuelo, got it right, or I would probably have been arrested for killing Iverson in cold blood.

  The body had been taken out two hours ago, and after the cops lef
t, Buddy locked the front door, wearily climbed up to his bedroom, then stripped and flopped. He turned on the TV and watched, deadpan, as his legend grew right before his eyes. He was on every channel. This sort of heroic notoriety was something he had struggled to achieve for twenty years. It was suddenly happening on a level far beyond his wildest dreams, but he felt corrupted by it. He could still feel the fearHe knew now that beyond any doubt, he was a coward. He had always styled himself as a bad-boy outlaw who played by his own rules, kicked ass, and was afraid of nothing. Ironically, now that the world was finally embracing that image, he wanted to run from the lie.

  He stared at the TV in dead-eyed stupor, feeling nothing but a low-level dread about his future.

  Consuelo knocked on the bedroom door. "Senor Brazil... ?"

  "Yes, what is it?" he snapped, and struggled to see over his barrel chest to the bedroom door. She was standing there, her fresh paramedic bandage covering her right arm, which was in a sling.

  "Senor, dere ees mans downstair..." she said in her broken English.

  "I don't wanna see anybody."

  "Dey heff dis por jew."

  "That's you, Consuelo, not Jew. Jews are agents, Sephardic ten-percent assholes."

  "No. Por favor, dey give dis por jew." She was holding out something in her hand.

  He sat up in bed, exposing his furry chest, and nodded. She came to him on tiptoes and handed him a gold ring.

  Buddy had never had a particularly good personal relationship with Consuelo. He used to shout at her and tell her she was an idiot. Consuelo had told her sister in Cuemavaca that he was a pendejo, a gringo malo, who used bad drugs and took advantage of women and had kinky sex with prostitutes. She had called him el diablo pequeno, the little devil.

  Now that he had saved her from the mad doctor, she didn't know how to treat him or what to think.

  "Thank you! Leave me alone," he snapped coldly, and she quickly left, quietly closing the door behind her.