The Fourth Wall

by Williams, Walter Jon

  It was being drunk that saved me. If I’d been sober, I would have stood there and been cut down while I tried to think out what to do. The alcohol kept me from thinking, and freed me to simply react.

  There are screams and the crowd is surging around, trying to get away. I’m still looking around, because someone did yell there was a gun, and I’m blinded by the flashes of cameras, and I realize that the whole thing is going to be on the entertainment news by midnight.

  “Did someone see a gun?” I’m asking. I’m standing and blinking in the flashing lights, a perfect target. “Is there a gun?”

  If I keep standing here, I think, I’ll get shot. But if I just run off in some random direction, I could be dashing right at the person with the gun, and I’ll still get shot. I need someone to tell me what to do.

  Simon looks up from the ground, where he’s got one of my attacker’s arms twisted behind his back.

  “I couldn’t remember the word ‘knife,’” he says. “Not in the heat of the moment.”

  “Dude,” I say, “I’m just glad you didn’t say ‘pencil.’”

  CityWalk security arrives and helps to restore some kind of order. Real police are there within minutes, and my assailant is handcuffed and hauled to his feet. He’s wheezing and gasping for breath. My kick completely knocked the wind out of him.

  I look at him as he gasps and slobbers and I see the smudge of red on his forehead, the tilaka he must have applied earlier that evening, and I realize that he’s Trishula. An angry laugh bursts from my lips.

  “Om Shiva, motherfucker,” I tell him.

  INT. SEAN’S SUITE—NIGHT

  It takes a couple hours to finish giving statements at the police station, in part because I’m interrupted by frantic phone calls from Dagmar and Richard and any number of other people who want to make sure I’m all right. After reporters start calling I turn off the phone.

  One of the cops comes out to talk to me, and tells me that Trishula started confessing about two seconds after he got in the cruiser. The people at the ashram knew he was Trishula, he said, and they hid him until just yesterday. That’s when they were spooked by people showing up asking for him, and kicked him out. He had no place to go but looking for me.

  I’ve just beat up a homeless guy. Not that I’m sorry.

  Astin drives me back to the hotel in time for me to watch myself KO Trishula on television.

  Damn, the kick is a thing of beauty. Up comes the right knee, “chambering” as they say; and then the foot drives out like a piston, the support foot turning, the hips going straight for the target, all my weight behind the strike as the ball of the foot contacts Trishula’s solar plexus. My fists are raised, on guard, ready to finish off the foe if the kick doesn’t do its job, but he was coming so fast and so unguarded that he impaled himself on my foot, and that finished him.

  After the kick I look completely poised, fists still up, ready for action. The camera can’t tell that I’m just standing there because I’m blinded by camera flashes and I can’t think of anything else to do. The camera makes me look awesome.

  I look like a hero. I look like Kato in action. I look like a Bandit King of Ancient China.

  Fuck, I look like Roheen.

  I don’t want to go to sleep. I want to celebrate. I’ve kicked the stuffing out of at least one of the people who have me holed up in a hotel room under guard, and even if he was some weedy whack-job who’s been living on a diet of brown rice for the last ten years, that’s reason enough to have some fun.

  I’m sobering up and that’s not the party I’m looking for, so I walk to the elevator, past the guards there, and go down to the hotel bar. But the few people in the bar are strangers, and I’ve missed last call. The bartender is emptying the snack bowls and eager to go home.

  I decide I can maybe call some folks and invite them to my suite, so I go upstairs again. Once in the room I go to the suite’s minibar, get out a miniature of Johnnie Walker, and pour it into a glass. I add a single cube of ice, swirl it a bit, and take a drink. The warm bite of the liquor latches onto my throat, then slowly lets go. I look at my phone to see who’s been calling me.

  Almost all of them are reporters, including Kari Sothern. Both Cleve and Bruce Kravitz have called, and the thought that my agent cares is enough to warm the cockles of my heart, wherever those might be. I call Bruce back, and after I assure him that I’m unharmed, we agree on a statement that PCTA can release tomorrow in which I modestly claim credit for single-handedly capturing a heavily armed homicidal cultist maniac.

  “I don’t know if this is what you want,” Bruce tells me, “but you’re one big step closer to getting big action hero roles.”

  “I’ll take them!” I say.

  Then I call Cleve and tell him what Bruce and I decided, and then I look through the list of reporters and call the important ones and give them quotes. I humbly credit Master Pak with instilling such exemplary martial skill in me. While this chatting is going on I drain a couple more miniatures of Johnnie Walker.

  My phone rings just as I’ve finished talking with the woman from Hollywood at Night, and I see it’s my father. I answer.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  “Are you all right?” He’s talking very fast. “I saw on the news that you were attacked.”

  “I’m fine,” I say. I laugh. “I’m better than fine, I’m great.”

  “That’s good. That’s good.”

  “I’m a freakin’ whirlwind of martial badness,” I babble. “Did you see that front kick? Was that perfect or what?”

  “They said the whole production is being threatened. They said you’re forted up in a hotel with everyone on the crew.”

  I laugh. “Yeah, we’re all hiding out. Not for long, though…we’re only shooting for another few days.”

  “And what happens then?”

  It’s something I haven’t quite considered. If I’m no longer needed for the production, will Dagmar withdraw my security? And—if my theory about Joey is correct—isn’t that exactly when I would need someone to step between me and a speeding SUV?

  A front kick, I think, isn’t going to stop a two-and-a-half-ton mass of hurtling Detroit steel.

  “Looks like I’ll have to take care of business before the end of production,” I say. I go to my closet and grab the shoulder bag with the Glock in it. “Thanks for calling, Dad,” I say. “I’ve got some stuff to do now.”

  “Say—Sean—did you get the package—?”

  I hang up, take the bag to the desk in the front room, and take out Tito Aragon’s gun. I contemplate the weapon for a moment, then decide to make sure the gun and I can never be put together in the same frame. I take a hand towel from the bathroom and scrub the gun of prints, and then I realize my prints are probably on the clip and the bullets, so I take the clip out and remove the bullets and scrub each one of them.

  While I do this, I drink another miniature from the minibar. The bar’s out of scotch, so I start on the Jack Daniel’s.

  I’ve played heavies, so I know how to work a gun. I’ve fired pistols on any number of television shows—my characters always have charming names like “Freak-Face” and “Luke Stiltwalker”—but I’ve never actually fired live ammunition.

  Using the towel, I reload the bullets in the clip, then put the clip back into the gun. I work the slide and put a bullet in the chamber. Then I wipe the whole thing with the towel again, and put it back in the shoulder bag with the towel on top of it.

  I keep my hand on the gun, so I can pull it and draw it and fire with my hand still in the towel. I make sure that my finger, wrapped in the towel, can fit through the trigger guard. Once I shoot, I can drop the pistol and walk away and no one will ever connect the weapon to me. If it’s registered to anyone, it’s registered to Tito Aragon, and he’s been dead for eight years.

  The plan is perfect! I’m invincible. I’m the Bandit King of Ancient China, and all I need is another Jack Daniel’s and I’m on my way.

  I have
my drink, and then I open the door and look down the corridor. There’s no security in sight. The guards sit around a couple corners, by the elevators, because the stairs are alarmed and the elevators are the only way to get to this floor. I leave my own door slightly ajar so I can dash into my room quickly, and then I cruise on silent ninja feet ten yards or so to the big double doors of Joey’s suite. The suite has a doorbell, so I press the button. When there’s no response, I press it again.

  I’ve got my hand in the shoulder bag and the towel in my fist. In the towel is the pistol. Except that I can’t shoot anybody right now because the door is shut.

  I ring the bell for a third time, and as I’m retracting my finger the door jerks open and Joey’s there, and I give a little surprised jump. Joey’s shirt is halfway open, and he’s still wearing the trousers belonging to his white summer suit. He’s in his stocking feet, and his hair is mussed. He looks up at me.

  “What’s the problem?” he says.

  I could shoot him right now and be back in my room before the guards are even out of their chairs. But somehow the plan is not working. Joey doesn’t look like a monster or a multiple murderer. He looks like a tired middle-aged man who’s kicked off his shoes after a long, hard day. He looks like an old friend who wants to help me with the problem that’s brought me to his door in the middle of the night.

  I realize that Joey the director is going to have to help me with this scene.

  “You didn’t call, Joey,” I say. “Everyone else called to make sure I was okay, but you didn’t call.”

  “Everyone said you were all right. They said you beat the shit out of the creep.” He narrows his eyes as he looks up at me. “Have you been drinking?” he asks.

  “Hell yes,” I proclaim.

  He swings the door open wide. “Come in before someone sees you and reports you to fucking Dagmar.”

  I close the door behind me. Joey’s room is decorated in shades of cream and gold. A big bouquet wafts floral scent through the room. His vest and suit jacket have been thrown casually over the back of an overstuffed chair. A stack of scripts sits on the table next to the sofa.

  “I’m getting scripts again,” he says. His tone is dismissive. “It’s all crap that other people have turned down, but I can always hope to find something good the others have missed.”

  “Good luck,” I say. “Let me know if there’s a part for me.”

  Joey sits heavily on the cream-colored couch. I sit in one of the overstuffed chairs and stare at him. I’m telling myself just to pull out the pistol and shoot him, but I can’t do it.

  I need to work myself up to it. I need to get angry.

  “What do you have in the bag?” Joey asks me. “A bottle or something?”

  “No,” I say. “I don’t need another drink.” I try to glare at him. I try to grow some indignation. “What the fuck’s going on, Joey?” I ask.

  “It’s a freak show, is what it is.” Joey’s gaze is leaden, his mouth frozen in a snarl. “Dagmar’s never made a feature before and doesn’t know what she’s doing, Carter-Ann is wiring audience members in Timbuktu or some damn place in order to tell us how to do our jobs, and—”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about, Joey,” I say. “I’m talking about all these people getting killed.”

  He just looks at me.

  “Everyone who got killed,” I say, “was at your house the night Timmi died. Mac, Jaydee, Nataliya—Jesus, Nataliya couldn’t have been more than sixteen at the time.”

  “She got older,” Joey says. “Everybody got older—except for Timmi, who couldn’t get older because some shithead killed her.”

  “They all died the way Timmi died!” I blurt. “A crash, or—Mac went off a cliff!”

  Joey’s stare challenges me. “Am I supposed to be in mourning? Am I supposed to care?” He snorts. “I got all the mourning and caring done six years ago. I’m not going to do that again, not for a talent-free piece of crap like Mac MacCartney, not for a drunk like Jaydee and not for a spoiled pop star.”

  “Jaydee was my friend!” I’m shouting now.

  “She was a lonely old soak,” Joey says. “You were the only friend she had, and you only saw her when you were working. You never saw her when she was passed out in front of the TV set at home. The hit-and-run saved her from a painful death by cirrhosis. It’s all for the best.”

  Fury blazes up in me. Let it blaze a little more, and maybe I can do what I came here to do.

  “What are you going to say about me, Joey?” I ask.

  His tone is suspicious. “What do you mean?”

  “Mac was a piece of crap, Nataliya was spoiled, Jaydee was a drunk…if I’m killed, what do you say about me? That I was a has-been, a freak, a ham actor…” I’m shouting again. “What are you going to say about me once I’m dead?”

  He stares at me frozen-faced. He looks like the bronze statue of some Renaissance duke or something, glaring down from a plinth.

  “Did you kill Timmi?” he asks.

  I gape at him. Guilt and fear come up out of nowhere and start tugging, yanking at my muscles. It’s all I can do not to twitch like a dog.

  “What the fuck?” I demand.

  “It’s a simple question.”

  I challenge him back. “How did you know Mac didn’t kill her?”

  “I thought he had.” Joey’s words are matter-of-fact. “But then six or seven months ago Sandy McGinnis reminded me that Mac was too drunk to drive, so Sandy took him home, and Sandy’s pool-boy boyfriend drove Mac’s car to her house. And Sandy was sober that night—” He laughs. “And she’s a bad liar. I’d know if she wasn’t telling the truth.”

  I stare at him. So Joey had tipped Mac onto the rocks at Malibu, and then discovered only years later that he’d got the wrong man. And now he was making up for lost time.

  “What are you going to do to me, Joey?” I ask. “I’ve got a couple more days of production—and then I’m no use any more. Do I get hit by an SUV then?”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” he says.

  “I loved Timmi!” I scream. I’m on my feet, one arm waving, the other stuffed deep in the bag. “I loved you both!”

  “Answer my question!” Joey lunges out of the sofa and heads for me, and it’s worse than Trishula coming with a knife, because this is a man I’ve known and respected all my life, and there’s pure homicide in his eyes…in panic I yank the pistol out of the shoulder bag and point it at him.

  He stops dead. He looks at the gun, appearing from the towel like an angry hornet from a bedraggled flower, and then he looks at me.

  “You must be mistaking me for someone who gives a damn,” he says. “Go ahead and fucking shoot, if that’s what you came for.”

  I snarl and point the Glock right between his eyes. The gun is shaking but there’s no way I can miss.

  He looks up at me. There’s a contemptuous twist to his upper lip.

  I try to shoot. I try to will my finger to squeeze the trigger. Nothing happens.

  “Fuck!” I shout. “Fuck, fuck!”

  My words fail to propel the bullet from the barrel. I stare at Joey over the sights, at the stony eyes that already have me dead and buried.

  I flee the room and lock and chain the door to my own suite. My hands are shaking. I finish off the bourbon and start on the vodka. After that things get a little dim.

  Later I remember hanging over the toilet and wiping vomit from my lips with a piece of toilet paper while stomach acid burns in my sinus. I remember watching myself on the TV behaving like a hero. I remember seeing Burmese tanks burning in the jungle. I remember looking out my window at Forest Lawn and thinking that the next funeral would be for me.

  I’m the Watcher, forting up in the Blue Area, unable to act. I remember making sure the gun was with me wherever I went around the suite.

  Some unknowable amount of time later, I wake to find someone standing near the bed and reaching for me. I give a yell and grab the gun and brandish it in his face
. I see staring eyes and a gaping, startled mouth.

  “Sean, Sean!” he says. “It’s me, Simon!”

  I blink at my bodyguard and lower the gun. My eyes are gummed and there’s some kind of nasty residue on my lips. The room smells of vomit and sweat and gun oil.

  “What time is it?” I ask.

  “I came to see if you were all right,” Simon says. “I knocked, but you didn’t answer. I called your phone, but all I got was voice mail.” He looks at the gun. “Have you been packing this whole time?”

  “Sort of.” I wipe crusty stuff off my eyelids. “Why are you here?”

  “There’s a problem,” he says. “I’m sorry to tell you—” He looks away from me for a brief instant. “Joey da Nova’s been killed,” he says. “We’re checking everyone in the hotel to make sure they’re okay.”

  I open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. I look at the gun in my fist.

  I didn’t kill him, I think.

  And then, Did I?

  ACT 3

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Our Reality Network

  Live Feed

  LadyDayFan says:

  So we’ve all seen the video of our boy Sean taking Trishula down last night? Nice work from all concerned.

  Consuelo says:

  Ought we to be congratulating ourselves? If we’d left Trishula alone, maybe he would have remained a harmless crank instead of trying to kill someone.

  Hippolyte says:

  He was hardly harmless. He burned Sean’s car, remember?

  Chatsworth Osborne Jr. says:

  What concerns me is the mortality rate in this production. Reuters just said that Nataliya Hogan was the second person on this production to be killed.

  LadyDayFan says:

  Chatsworth! We haven’t seen you here in a long time.

  Chatsworth Osborne Jr. says:

  I moved to New Zealand to be near my daughter. It was a long process.

  Consuelo says:

  Welcome back. I know you have “resources.” Perhaps you can apply them in this instance.