"Now I'm supposed to lie." Her anger was escalating. "It would have been better if I didn't know. Why did you have to tell me?"
"I never lie to you."
"Bullshit."
"I trust your judgment then. It would mean a great deal to me if you would keep our son out of it," he said softly.
Suddenly her cell phone rang and she pulled it out of her purse and opened it. "Yeah… okay… Just gimme the headlines." She listened. "Okay… okay… sure. You can reach me on this phone." She hung up, looked up at Shane. "The Westlake P. D. is policing the crime scene. The paramedics have the two wounded Crips at USC on the lock-down floor."
"Who was the D. B.?"
"They're printing him, but one of the Westlake blues on the scene said he wrote him for a taillight infraction a few days ago when he was out at Stone's place-a gangster named Darnel Sweet. I know him. I've been studying Crip arrest sheets and F. I. cards all damn week. His street name is J Rock. His gang profile says he's Russell Hayes's first cousin."
"He's the one Amac thinks killed Stone."
"A lot of people killed Cordell. He had so much lead in him, we almost called a crane to lift him onto the coroner's gurney. Stone got it from so many directions, it's a miracle they didn't waste each other in the crossfire."
A half-hour later Chooch called from upstairs and asked Shane and Alexa to come up to the psych ward on the second floor. They rode up in the elevator, then sat on worn-out sofas behind a screened-off lounge. A few minutes after they arrived Chooch came out of the ward and joined them. Like Shane, he was filthy, tired, and drawn.
"They made me leave. Every time Delfina looked at me, she started crying." Then he faced Alexa. "Thanks for coming, Mom."
"Thank God you're all right. But what you two did was harebrained." Alexa took Chooch into her arms and hugged him. Shane thought he saw tears in his son's eyes.
Then Chooch pulled back. "Mom, don't be mad at Dad, okay? I made him do it."
"I'm not mad at him," Alexa said. "I'm just frustrated." She heaved a sigh. "But I guess if I ever really got him rewired, he'd be too normal to hang with."
Chooch said, "If SWAT had been called in, they would have-"
"Spare me your SWAT evaluations, okay?" Alexa interrupted. "You guys don't know what SWAT would have done. Maybe they could have actually rescued her without wasting anybody."
"Or maybe they would have killed the whole bunch," Chooch said softly. "Delfina included."
"We'll never know."
They were all so tired that it was impossible to continue the conversation. The sun was just coming over the San Bernardino Mountains, throwing shafts of orange light into the gray, sterile corridors of the psychiatric ward.
They waited for further word from either the Westlake police department or the doctors examining Delfina, but none came. They were all bone-tired so they stretched out on the sofas, and almost before his head hit the imitation leather, Shane was asleep.
***
The dream was as disturbing as it was bizarre. Shane, who was dark and Mediterranean in life, was blond and pale in the dream. He was wearing a three-piece light gray suit, standing in a wood-walled stable or stall of some kind, washing a huge brown animal with a soft brush. Strangely, with each stroke, Shane removed pieces of skin from the howling beast, the hide coming off in ugly, bloody strips. The animal sometimes looked like a buffalo, and sometimes more like a Clydesdale horse. It bucked and cried as he scrubbed its skin off. Shane was alarmed at the damage he was doing and kept checking the brush, trying it on himself to see how it was possible for it to do such damage. When he brushed his own skin, the bristles felt soft as velvet. Reassured, he continued washing the animal, and once again, would be skinning the shrieking beast. Occasionally, he would look up and see his reflection in a mirror hanging in the grooming stall. Was it really him in the mirror with this strange three-piece suit and weird blond hair? Shane was frightened by his unfamiliar appearance and by the damage he was doing, but knew it was important for him to finish. Then he would turn to the animal and begin the torturous task all over again.
Suddenly somebody was shaking him. He left his bizarre animal-washing project and drifted up into a world that was equally disturbing. Shane sat up and found himself looking into the probing eyes of a gray-haired woman who introduced herself as Dr. Elizabeth Sloan. She said she was a psychiatrist and looked the part: horn-rimmed glasses and a white hospital coat with her name and degree stitched over the pocket. "Could we have a little chat?" she asked as Alexa and Chooch sat up rubbing their eyes. "We might all be more comfortable in my office."
They followed her down a wide linoleum corridor lined with painted metal doors that had wire-reinforced glass observation windows cut in the center. Dr. Sloan turned the corner at the end of the hall and showed them into a cluttered office with an old sofa, a desk, and two pull-up chairs. She sat in one of the pull-ups; Chooch and Shane took the sofa, leaving Alexa the remaining chair.
"How is she?" Chooch blurted.
"It's very complicated, but I think you need to know what you're facing. Are you her mother?" Dr. Sloan asked Alexa.
Alexa reached into her purse, pulled out her badge, and showed it to the psychiatrist.
"Lieutenant Scully?" Dr. Sloan furrowed her brow. "Do you know where her family is?"
"They're in Cuernavaca," Chooch answered. "She only has an aunt. Her parents are both dead."
"But you're her brother?"
"No, I'm sorry. I lied. I'm her boyfriend," Chooch confessed.
"Doctor, could you tell us what's going on? What's happened to her?" Alexa probed.
"She's a juvenile, only sixteen. I'm afraid I can only consult with the parents or a responsible member of her family."
"She was kidnapped," Alexa said, trying to control her frustration. "One of her kidnappers died in a shootout while police were effecting her rescue. This is a felony abduction case with an attendant homicide. Her parents are deceased and she doesn't have any relatives here except for a second cousin who is a Mexican Mafia gang leader and a fugitive. She's an essential witness to a long list of class-A felonies. So why don't you forget all this neat med school protocol and help us understand her condition?"
Dr. Sloan smiled, then leaned back in her chair. "Does this in-your-face style work well at the LAPD?"
"Works great. Gonna work here, too. If I have to go over your head, I will. How's it going to help her to withhold information?"
"Please," Chooch pleaded.
Dr. Sloan saw the desperation on his face, then sighed and finally nodded. "I think your friend has severe post-traumatic stress disorder. I'm prohibited from making PTSD her official diagnosis until I can observe her for at least two weeks. But from what I can see, particularly since I now know she was kidnapped and raped-"
"Raped?" Chooch interrupted.
Shane reached out and put a hand on his arm. Now that Alexa had her talking, he didn't want to break the doctor's flow. "Keep going," he said.
"We've done some vaginal swabs and, from our preliminary examination, it looks like she was sexually assaulted, maybe by more than one person. The DNA tests will hopefully sort all that out." She paused to evaluate their reactions. "There are certain diagnostic criteria for PTSD, and she fits quite enough of them to warrant the preliminary diagnosis."
"What are they?" Shane prodded.
"When a person experiences a severe traumatic event outside the range of what we might call normal human experience, PTSD can occur. The kind of severe stressor I'm talking about might include the threat of violence, a deadly threat against a loved one, war experience, or abduction, and most certainly a multiple rape."
"And the symptoms…?" Alexa asked.
"She doesn't remember much after last Tuesday, when she says she was walking near her aunt's house. This short-term memory loss is known as psychogenic amnesia. She's a little dazed and not focusing too clearly. She seems to have a feeling of detachment to events currently going on around her.
Of course, we've sedated her, and that could be partially responsible, but she's also not falling asleep with tranquilizers or sleeping pills, which is very consistent with this condition. She has an exaggerated startle response-another supporting symptom. If you come up behind and surprise her, she almost jumps out of her skin. Once she finally falls asleep, she's most likely going to dream about the inciting traumatic event and, therefore, her subconscious fear of these dreams is keeping her awake. In short, since it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, in two weeks I'm probably going to be able to label it a duck: post-traumatic stress disorder."
"I thought you only got that in combat," Shane said.
"Well, isn't that exactly where she's been? But aside from military combat, it hits when we're emotionally overridden by an experience we can't absorb, and our defenses start shutting systems down until we can deal with it."
"But she'll eventually be okay?" Chooch asked. He had flinched at the first mention of rape but was now focused on the more important issue of Delfina's recovery.
"She might; she might not. Sometimes things short-circuit in our heads when we're under too much stress. That's not a very medical way of putting it, but in essence, it's what can happen. All we can do now is wait and see."
"I want to stay with her," Chooch said.
"I don't have a problem with that," Dr. Sloan replied. "It might help to have a friend here."
"This girl was being held in connection with the gang violence that's taking place in L. A.," Alexa said. "She's probably still in some danger, so I'm going to assign a police officer to watch her room."
Dr. Sloan nodded. "Okay, but you'll have to set that up with the hospital administrator."
The three of them thanked her, then walked out of the office into the corridor.
"Chooch, if you stay here, I want the officer guarding her to keep an eye on you, too," Alexa said.
"Come on, Mom, I'm not in danger."
"No 'Come on, Mom.' Just call it a justifiable parental overreaction."
"I agree," Shane said. "I did what you asked, now you do this for us."
"Okay," Chooch finally relented. They left him in the waiting room and walked to the elevator.
"I've got to go back to North Chalon Road and change clothes, then make a conference at the studio at noon," Shane said. "Unless you want the LAPD Detective Services Group to end up owing millions, I better not miss that meeting. I'm sure you and Filosiani can clean up this little mess I made out in Westlake Village."
She smiled at him as the elevator arrived and they got aboard. "A little mess is when you drop a plate, Shane. When you drop three assholes, it's called a major incident." They rode down to the lobby, and after they exited Alexa took his hand.
They walked out into the sunshine and kissed in the parking lot, then headed to their separate cars.
The Acura was boiling hot, so he quickly rolled down the windows. It was ten-thirty, and the temperature was already in the high seventies. The Valley was headed toward another triple-digit day. The northern winds that had cleansed the city and kept it cool for the last half week had left as suddenly as they had arrived. Now the Basin was baking in one of its classic inversion layers. As Shane started his car, he looked up at the hospital windows on the second floor and wondered what would happen to Delfina. Would she carry these scars forever, or could she find the strength to bury the ugliness and leave it all behind? Where there's no fault, there should be no guilt, he thought. But then a soft voice argued from inside his head.
Some things can be true and, at the same time, have no meaning.
Chapter 35
THE DENNIS HOPPER RULE
When Shane arrived at Hollywood General Studios, he couldn't drive onto the lot because a huge eighteen-wheel truck, with a gargantuan redwood log strapped onto the flatbed trailer, was maneuvering back and forth on Monitor Street, trying to back through the gate. Shane parked outside at the curb and walked onto the lot past the retired motor officer, who had a clipboard in one hand and his phone in the other. He saw Shane and waved him over. As Shane approached, he could hear one side of an angry conversation.
"… no place to put another eighteen-wheeler. You're also gonna have t' find parking off the lot for the star dressing rooms, the honey wagons and two-holers. The wardrobe, prop, and camera trucks I'll try to squeeze in here for security reasons, but that's it. I only got two hundred parking spaces." The guard listened for a moment, making a face for Shane's benefit. "I don't care if you're pissed off! I'm pissed off! You're not the only film shooting here." He slammed down the phone.
"Problems?"
"Your director is an asshole. His rental trucks started moving in here this morning and knocked the shit outta the place." He looked up at the growling logging truck, which seemed to be getting itself hopelessly wedged in the studio driveway. "Lookit this asshole. He's never gonna get that thing through the gate."
"Is this all for The Neural Surfer?" Shane asked, looking past the guard shack into the lot, where a dozen rental trucks were parked with their back doors open and tailgates down. Twenty or more men were taking inventory, unloading camera equipment and grip and electrical packages.
"We're not equipped to make a hundred-million-dollar film here," the gate guard protested.
"A what?!"
"That's what the director said… Lubinski, or whatever his name is."
"Lubick. and this picture isn't gonna cost anywhere near a hundred million."
"Somebody better tell him. I never saw this much rolling stock."
Shane started toward the production office, but the guard' grabbed his arm. "Reason I waved you over is Mr. Marcella wanted me to give you something." He ducked into the shack, then reappeared a second later and handed Shane a folded note.
Shane…
Meet me at the vomitorium before noon.
Imperative.
Nicholas
The little grifter was wedged behind a tiny table in the dining car, drinking coffee. He had a copy of The Neural Surfer and looked up from it as Shane approached and slid into the empty seat across from him.
"Where the hell you been?" Nicky groused.
"You're not my only project." Shane looked down at the red-paged script. "You finally got it?"
"Yeah, I stole this from Rajindi's desk."
"Is it full of ferae naturae?" Shane deadpanned. "Huh?"
"Untamed nature."
"This script is more confusing than a Palm Beach ballot," Nicky said solemnly. "It's like somebody threw it all over the room, randomly gathered up the pages, then bradded the flicker with everything out of order."
"But a bargain at any price."
"Not to quibble, but Lubick told me this morning, whatever the printed budget number is, cube it."
"He's crazy. Doesn't anybody know that but us?" Shane groused.
"There's an old rule in Hollywood, which we call the Dennis Hopper Rule. Dennis is a good citizen now, but this was written back in the seventies, when he was a flicking head case. The rule states that it's perfectly okay to hire crazy, creative people for a film, unless it's Dennis Hopper, who you should never hire, because he's not crazy, he's insane." Nicky closed the script and glared at Shane. "Lubick isn't insane, he's only crazy. I'm trying to slow him down by telling him we aren't funded for anything close to a hundred and fifty million dollars."
"A hundred and fifty million?! The gate guard said it was a hundred million."
"Now the gate guard's doing budgets?" Nicky sighed. "But what's it matter… a hundred million, a hundred fifty? We don't have it, anyway."
"Good point."
"This asshole, Lubick, tells me just this morning that it's his solemn obligation as a director to bring this film in as far over budget as humanly possible."
"Dennis Valentine wants to take him out and kick the shit out of him."
"Where do I sign up?" Nicky said, then leaned forward. "But all is not lost, boychik, because I have secured what we call in the biz 'major studio
interest.' I told you my phone's been ringing off the hook with guys from the majors who all want to get in on this project. I've been fending them off, but I think the time is ripe to bring in a partner, which is a seven-letter word we use in the film biz that means sucker."
"Who?"
"There's a guy at Universal. Actually, he's the president of production, and I think he's perfect. Name's Steve Bergman, known around town as Stevie Wonder because he can't read."
"I'm sorry…?"
"He can't read. He's illiterate."
"And he's head of a major studio? How can the head of a studio not be able to read? That's crazy."
"Right. It's also the Dennis Hopper rule. Besides, he doesn't have to read. He's not stupid, just seriously dyslexic. Actually, he's a smart son of a bitch and a killer when it comes to deal points. Besides, a studio only has to say yes to twelve or fifteen films a year, so when Steve's development execs are ready to punch one up, and need him to green-light the project, they just put together a little table read. They hire actors to perform all the characters, and Stevie just sits at the head of the table with his eyes closed and listens. Nobody talks about the fact that he's illiterate and probably has ADD to boot. All the players know, but nobody makes anything out of it. It's like The Wizard of Oz without the funny costumes."
"You're putting me on," Shane said. "If you can't read, how can you pick a good script?"
"Lookit us. Our script reads like it came apart in the Xerox machine, and we're already half a million into preproduction."
"Okay… okay, so tell me how we get Stevie on board." Shane was grasping at straws, dreading his next meeting with Filosiani.
"We've got a late lunch with him in"-Nicky looked at his Rolex; Shane wondered if it was rented-"one hour, in the private executive dining room at Universal. He's talking about putting up half the budget and all the P and A."
"On a script he hasn't read?"
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