The Fourth Wall

by Williams, Walter Jon

  I look at her. “Which means?”

  She nods at me. “You get guards. You get armored cars. You get a flak jacket if we think you need one. You get a safe house and people licensed to carry firearms to keep it safe. And we’ll go on a hunt for that SUV.”

  Richard looks up at her. “I’ll set it up.”

  Dagmar rises from her chair. I’m a little too startled by the quickness of her decision to react right away, and she’s halfway to the door before I get to my feet.

  She stops, looks up at me. “Don’t leave the studio before Richard has your protection set up. He’ll call you when he’s ready.”

  “Okay.” I’m still a bit dazzled. I’m going to get guards? I think.

  Is that a good thing? I don’t know.

  At least she’ll know for sure I’m not drinking, I think.

  Dagmar steps out into the corridor, then swings round and returns. “Sean,” she asks, “who inherits when you die?”

  “Uh…” I think about it. “I don’t have a will, so I suppose it would be my parents.”

  “And you’re estranged from your parents, right?”

  I am completely thunderstruck when I realize where this line of inquiry is going—though now I think about it, I guess it’s kind of obvious. It’s not like I can picture either of my parents as murderers, but then I never saw them as swindlers, either.

  “I haven’t seen either of my parents in ten years,” I say. “But—”

  Dagmar lifts her dark brows. “But?” she prompts.

  Suddenly I want to defend my folks. It’s a reflex I didn’t know I still possessed. I figured ten years of desperation and financial struggle caused by their theft of my future had burned any family feeling right out of me.

  “My estate wouldn’t be worth much,” I point out. “All I have is a third-rate condo and a nice sound system.”

  “No residuals?”

  “A trickle, mostly from foreign markets. Family Tree isn’t being shown on any of the domestic satellite channels.”

  “Do they know that?”

  Again I’m impelled to say something in mitigation, but I can’t think of anything. “I don’t know what they know,” I say.

  “Might they know that Family Tree is about to be acquired by, say, Nickelodeon?”

  I look at her in surprise. “Is it?” I ask.

  Dagmar turns to Richard. “Find out where Sean’s parents actually are.”

  “My mom’s in an ashram in Andhra Pradesh,” I tell him. “Good luck finding out where my father is.”

  Dagmar looks up at me and pats me on the arm in a gesture meant to be comforting. “It’s unlikely that either of your parents wants to kill you,” she says. “We’re just covering all the bases.”

  Gee, I think. Thanks.

  I give Richard as much detail about my parents as I can remember, and then I return to the set for the rest of the afternoon. Nataliya is in some kind of super-intense mode and wraps up all her scenes with phenomenal efficiency and speed—maybe she needs to push off to a pedicure or something. Then there are a few brief scenes with Ferdy and the actors playing his parents, and we wrap for the day.

  I go to my trailer, and I call Richard and tell him where I am. Forty minutes later, my new bodyguard contacts me.

  His name is Simon. He’s in his forties, with a mustache and dark hair both going gray. He wears navy slacks and a tie and a lightweight zippered jacket with lots of pockets. I don’t see a gun, but Dagmar told me there would be one, and I don’t have any reason to doubt her.

  “You have anything you need to bring with you?” he asks. He speaks with the Okie accent that’s common in the Central Valley—or maybe he’s a real Okie, who knows?

  I heft my shoulder bag and my MP3 player. “Only this.” I don’t show him the gun.

  Simon’s car is a dark blue Chevy Impala Super Sport with tinted windows and alloy wheels. He tells me that the body of the car is filled with ceramic and laminated armor stronger, and much lighter, than steel, and that the windows are bullet-resistant.

  Simon drives me to North Hollywood, to the NoHo Plaza, a boutique hotel off Magnolia Boulevard. I have a feeling that a lot of the rooms are filled by talent belonging to traveling productions at the Millennium Dance Complex and the NoHo Arts Center, both of which are only a couple streets away. Dominating the hotel lobby is a huge Hockney painting of an avocado-green 1950s California home with a flat overhanging roof that looks like one of Hedda Hopper’s hats. There are palm trees in the painting, and a pool and canvas-backed directors’ chairs. It’s such an ideal California paradise that I want to dive right into the pool. I’m too struck by the painting to even notice the black faux-onyx reception desk with its polite staff in wine-colored blazers. When their existence penetrates my consciousness, they make sure to inform me about the Room Spa Program, and the Arnold Palmer Happy Hour, still going on in the bar for the next half-hour, after which it will be replaced by the evening wine tasting.

  I’m put into a two-room second-floor suite that smells of lemon polish and sandalwood. The walls feature silk screens of Marilyn Monroe, and there’s a curved wet bar illuminated by a chandelier with an emerald-green cut-glass shade. The Jacuzzi has a refrigerated holder for a bottle of wine or champagne.

  I’m more interested in the video game controllers sitting next to the television in the entertainment console. They’re likely to be my chief diversion as long as I’m staying here.

  “I’ll need the keys to your place,” Simon tells me. “I’ll get you some clothing and supplies for tonight, then tomorrow we’ll do a security audit on your home, and teach you a few things you might find useful.”

  “I have a premiere tomorrow night,” I say.

  Simon grins. “We’ll get you there,” he says. “Where is it?”

  I sigh. Suddenly this doesn’t seem like a very good omen.

  “It’s in a cemetery,” I say.

  FROM: Helmuth

  SUBJECT: Getting a clue

  Sean, I’d like to plant a comment in your blog that will serve as a clue to some of our online gamers. It will be signed “Tempest Royal.” I hope that’s okay.

  Please don’t erase the comment when it appears.

  FROM: Sean Makin

  SUBJECT: Re: Getting a clue

  Okay by me.

  EXT. HOLLYWOOD FOREVER CEMETERY—EVENING

  Los Angeles boasts what is probably the only cemetery with a film program. The Hollywood Forever cemetery, off Santa Monica Boulevard, shows vintage films projected on the wall of a large crypt. They have DJs before and after, and viewers bring picnics and blankets and watch from the lawn next to the single sarcophagus shared by the senior and junior Douglas Fairbanks.

  I’ve gone to the shows myself. There aren’t very many places left where you can see old movies as intended, amid an audience of happy enthusiasts, rather than on the small, lonely screen at home.

  I’ve also made a kind of pilgrimage to the child stars interred there: Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer, Our Gang star, murdered at the age of thirty-one. Mildred Harris, who starred as Dorothy in a series of Oz films, got knocked up by Charlie Chaplin at the age of sixteen, gave birth to a son who lived three days, and died young. Sharing a crypt with Mildred is another Our Gang alum, Darla Hood, who retired at fourteen and died mysteriously at forty-seven. In another crypt is Bebe Daniels, who first toddled onstage at the age of four and never left the business—unlike the other child stars buried here, she had a long, happy, successful career.

  Judging by the evidence offered within the cemetery gates, I have only one chance in four of living a natural life span.

  Determined to beat the odds, I drive into the cemetery with two bodyguards—Simon brought along a backup, a young man with a goatee, shoulder-length dark hair, and an embroidered vest under his yoked Western jacket. His name is Albert, though I’m sure he’d rather be called Wild Bill.

  I’ve left my pistol in my shoulder bag, which I’ve left in my closet. Packing a pistol
at my premiere might be viewed as a little odd by my peers.

  Besides, the place is as secure as a cemetery will ever get. There’s security at the gate, and guards in blue blazers and tan trousers wander through the crowds, chatting to one another on their radios. This would clearly be a bad place to murder me.

  It’s as far removed from a standard Hollywood premiere as possible. It’s Hollywood 2.0—or maybe 5.0, or 8.1, or 12.5, since a lot of Hollywoods have gone down the 101 since DeMille made The Squaw Man here in 1914.

  The scene is set up to remain in keeping with the New Delhi setting for the first episode of the film. There’s a bhangra band playing in the Iberian-Moorish Masonic Lodge, the beats of the double-ended drums echoing from the arabesques on the ceiling, the huge wooden thrones, and the ominous inverted pentagram that hangs over the heads of the guests. Outside the crypt shared by Elmo Lincoln and Gregg Toland there’s a buffet of Indian cuisine and a bar. Waiters circulate with glasses of champagne. People in the cast and crew wander among the crypts and tombstones. Since there’s no red carpet, reporters and photographers pursue the cast more or less at random. Most of them cluster around Nataliya. I see Deeptimoy Srivastava, in a white Nehru jacket, surrounded by cameras.

  I’m wearing a handmade silk shirt, handmade cashmere slacks, and a handmade silk jacket. This isn’t because I have a fetish for handmade apparel, but because I’m tall as a lamppost and skinny as a stripper pole, with a neck as wide as my thigh. Regular clothes don’t fit me. I get everything tailored at Singh & Son, the Los Angeles branch of a firm founded in Hong Kong.

  I manage to give about half a dozen interviews and chatter away as long as they’ll have me. I’m relieved that no one asks about arson, murder, or attempts on my life, and from this I conclude that nobody’s reading my blog. I am asked about Joey, and I say that he’s busy editing further installments of Escape to Earth. It’s what I’ve been told to say. So far as I know, there’s no director yet.

  I hear one of the waiters refer to me as “Luggage Boy.” For once I’m not annoyed or depressed.

  Simon and Albert hang discreetly in the background, ever alert to jump between me and a bullet. No one opens fire.

  Palm trees stand on the horizon like drunken pickets. Drone aircraft circle aimlessly overhead, taking pictures for the paparazzi, hobbyists, and perverts who operate them. They probably aren’t seeing anything revealing, except maybe some celebrities’ bald spots.

  I get a plate of lamb pilaf and a glass of mango lassi and wander among the tombstones. The mint in the pilaf cools my palate. There must be a thousand people here. I find Dagmar standing with Deeptimoy Srivastava near a towering memorial modeled after an Egyptian obelisk. For once she’s not wearing a faded tee: in fact she’s in a midnight-blue sari of Bangalore silk patterned with silver, with a teal stripe embroidered with vines and red flowers. Srivastava’s white suit goes well with his white leonine hair and horseshoe mustache. She’s drinking orange juice, and he’s sipping something amber from a highball glass.

  What are you doing here? I think at him. He’s one of the world’s richest men, supposedly retired to devote himself to good works, and now he’s decided to produce movies. If he wanted profit and glamour, he could have produced Bollywood films and sold them in one of the world’s largest markets. Instead he’s doing Escape to Earth—a very different production designed to be delivered along the IT backbone that Sri’s installed all over Asia. Presumably he can make a profit that way, but simply making more money or exploiting the technology doesn’t make sense for someone like Sri. Either he’s a hardheaded entrepreneur or the second coming of Gandhi, but why would either of those people make movies? It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

  But why should I look a gift horse in the mouth? Sri’s expended vast amounts of energy and capital to make me a star. I should forgo second thoughts and settle for being deeply grateful.

  “That’s incredibly lovely,” I tell Dagmar, indicating her sari. It appears that saris make perfectly acceptable maternity garments.

  “I got it when I ran a game in India some years ago,” she says. “This is maybe the third time I’ve had a chance to wear it.”

  “You should wear it more often. It suits you.”

  “Not enough pockets,” she says. “I miss my cargo pants.” She looks from me to Srivastava and back.

  “Have you met Sri?” she asks.

  “I haven’t had the pleasure.” I’m pleased I can call him Sri instead of trying to pronounce his full name.

  I juggle my plate and glass, and then Sri and I shake hands. “We’ve been discussing you,” he says.

  I try to conceal my alarm. Tycoons and terrorists, I figure, make bad enemies.

  “I hope I haven’t caused you too much trouble,” I say.

  He seems amused. “Building an IT backbone in Bhutan was trouble,” he says. “Compared to that, you’re nothing.”

  “I guess not,” I say. I’d probably be more offended if I had any idea where or what Bhutan might be. “Did you install the IT just for the movie?”

  Sri is even more amused. “In those days,” he says, “I was trying to make money.”

  I have no idea what he actually means by this, so I turn to Dagmar. “Is everything going well?”

  “So far.” She frowns. “Can we talk about your parents?”

  I’m not sure I want Sri to know any of this, but then I reflect that I put everything on my blog anyway. “Okay,” I say.

  “There’s no indication that your mother’s left India in many years,” Dagmar says. “Your father’s pretty much dropped off the radar, but no one using either his American or Belizean passport has entered the U.S.”

  “You won’t have much luck finding him,” I say. “He’s had ten years to establish his new identity.”

  She sips her orange juice and frowns. “Might I suggest that you write a will giving everything to the Used-Up Actors’ Home, or something? And put that information on your blog?”

  “You think that’ll make me safer?” I’m skeptical.

  “It can’t hurt.”

  I think about it, and decide that, in the event that the SUV of Doom gets me, the Motion Picture and Television Fund is as good a place as any for my estate.

  A baby drone floats overhead, its rotors whirring. Dagmar raises her voice to speak over the sound. “We’re also having trouble finding Trishula,” she says. “He’s been using a virtual identity wallet and routing his comments through a distributed relay system headquartered in Belarus.”

  Though I understand not a word of this, I gather it’s not encouraging. “So you can’t find him?” I ask.

  “It’ll take longer than expected.” She nods reassuringly. “Richard will get him, though, particularly if he keeps posting. I’d suggest that you provoke him with further taunts, but I don’t want you to lose any more property”—she offers a thin smile—“so wait till after we’ve wrapped.”

  “Ha ha,” I say. I turn to Sri.

  “I don’t suppose you know Babaji, do you?”

  Teeth flash beneath the white horseshoe mustache. He adjusts his platinum-rimmed spectacles. “There are a few of India’s billion human beings I don’t know personally. And I’m not religious, so I don’t keep track of those people…” He shrugs. “Sorry.”

  “I figured it was a long shot.” An idea occurs to me, and I turn to Dagmar. “By the way,” I say, “how is Lenny Castro working out?”

  Even though I’m responsible for Lenny’s getting hired, I never see him, since our characters don’t meet till the final episode.

  “He’s working out fine,” Dagmar says. She gives a thoughtful look. “He plays Arrick as a kind of dreamy romantic, which you don’t expect in an arch-villain. Torey Richardson played the character as a more standard bad guy, so I’m almost happy for those broken legs.”

  “I’m glad it’s working out.”

  Dagmar narrows her eyes. “Lenny threw the fight, right? In exchange for the recommendation?” />
  I laugh. “Dagmar, I didn’t hire him. You did.”

  She pats me on the shoulder. “Hell, I don’t care. Fix all the fights you like. In a fixed fight, you won’t get hurt, and that’s all I care about.” She raises an admonishing finger. “Just don’t get caught.”

  Dagmar’s phone plays a few bars of some jazz-type tune I half-remember from somewhere, and she draws it from her bag. The backlit screen glows in her eyes.

  “I’ve got a premiere to get under way,” she says. “If you’ll excuse me?”

  “Sure.”

  I carry my pilaf and lassi past Johnny Ramone’s statue to the lawn near the Fairbanks Memorial, the area where on most summer weekends people go to watch the film program. The Fairbankses, father and son, are in a marble sepulcher surrounded on three sides by a classical portico, with a 120-foot reflecting pool stretching toward me. Behind this is a lawn, so far free of tombstones, stretched out along the blank wall of a long crypt where the pictures are projected during the summer film festival.

  Simon and Albert stroll along in the periphery of my vision, their gazes alert, their hands carefully poised and empty of food or drink containers. You’d think that someone would remark on what seem to be a pair of gunfighters guarding my flanks, but no one does.

  I pause by Johnny Ramone and bring out my new Chandra tablet. I bought it this afternoon to watch the premiere, but when the time comes I hesitate. I don’t watch dailies because it makes me too self-conscious about my work. Normally that doesn’t matter at a premiere, when I’ve completed my work months before, but this is different—I still have a few weeks of shooting to go.

  Eventually I decide that I’ll watch, but if I start getting that creepy feeling—the feeling that I’m overplaying, or stone-faced and untalented, or so repulsive-looking that even I can’t stand to look at myself—if I start getting rattled, I’ll turn it off and go get a second mango lassi. I install my plate and glass on Johnny Ramone’s plinth.

  I fire up the tablet and switch on the Augmented Reality function. As I swing the tablet around I see ghostly icons appear among the tombstones, most having to do with celebrities’ graves and the history of the cemetery. Capering right next to me is Johnny Ramone himself, hair flying as he plays a guitar slung low over his crotch. There’s a hole in the knee of his jeans.