The Fourth Wall

by Williams, Walter Jon

  Fortunately we live in Hollywood, where we don’t have to think about these things.

  I’ve been considering the sort of roles I want to play, and I have an idea.

  “The way I look,” I say, “I can’t be a conventional leading man. I can’t just show up on the screen and have the audience thinking I’m the hero. So I think I have to be someone who starts out bad and ends up the good guy.”

  Bruce nods. “That’s a good story,” he says. “We can do that story.”

  “Also,” I say, “I don’t want to jump into the first project that offers itself. Roheen’s made me bankable, okay, but I don’t want to make a movie for the sole purpose of capitalizing on Roheen’s success. That’s what happened with the two pictures I made after Family Tree was canceled, and the movies tanked and took me down with them.”

  Bruce nods again. It’s a little unnerving, the way his head moves but his blue eyes remain completely focused on me. It’s as if, instead of his eyeballs rotating inside his head, his body rotates around his fixed eyeballs.

  “You’ve obviously learned your way around this town,” he says. He takes a sip of his mineral water. “Speaking of exploitation,” he says, “I hear the conflict over Mister Baby Head has been settled.”

  I’m pleasantly surprised.

  “I ran into Jerry Singleton the other day, and he mentioned it.” Jerry was one of Mac’s partners in his production company. “Your success in Escape to Earth must have broken the logjam.” Bruce gives one of his ironic smiles. “So now you’ll be known both as Roheen and as a murderous chainsaw killer.”

  “Acetylene torch,” I say. “I used an acetylene torch in that one.”

  Bruce nods. “Soon you’ll be torching human flesh in theaters across the country.”

  The lunch ends on this delightful note, and with Bruce’s dry handshake. Cleve hustles off to get the waitress’s phone number. I walk Bruce out to the sidewalk, and then I call Simon, who is in a nearby garage with the Impala, to pick me up.

  I’ve got Simon through the weekend. If I want him after Sunday, I’ll have to pay him myself. I still haven’t made up my mind about that, though my new two-bedroom house is a little small for both me and guards.

  Bruce recedes in the direction of his headquarters. Beautifully dressed people walk past, intermixed with casually dressed 909ers looking for the stars. Rodeo Drive stretches left and right, boutiques and jewelry stores and places where you can get four-thousand-dollar shoes hand-crafted by Tibetan yak-herders out of specially prepared water buffalo leather and stitched with sinew from the intestines of rare snow leopards.

  Or rather, you can get them if you’re prepared to be put on a very long waiting list.

  The gaudy, insistent Rodeo that exists in Augmented Reality is invisible at the moment, since I’m not wearing my AriPop shades. Since I have a minute or two while Simon gets the car out of the garage, I slip my handheld out of its holster and turn on the AR app. I pan along the street, trying to spot the spinning globe that marks a place where you can view Escape to Earth. I’m pleased to see it, rather distantly, over a nearby café.

  I’m panning along when I hear the growl of a vehicle engine, and there—pulling a screaming U-turn right in the middle of Rodeo—is a black Ford Expedition.

  On the little screen, the Ford is almost buried in a host of colorful icons, and for a half-second I wonder if it’s real. And then recognition kicks in, and with it the adrenaline.

  The Ford’s engine bellows like an enraged bull. Blue smoke jets from spinning tires. I’m already running like hell. I sprint down the sidewalk and turn only when I’ve put a silver Toyota Tundra pickup between myself and danger.

  There is an enormous crash accompanied by the sound of smashing glass and shrieking rubber. I’m surprised at how far the SUV’s weight and momentum make the Tundra jump—the truck lurches up the sidewalk after me, causing me to skip backward in panic, but the Tundra hits the car in front of it and fails to crush me by a few feet.

  Another car, a Honda, enters the scene and hits the Ford’s right quarter. There’s another crash, another shriek of bent metal.

  Steam gushes from the Ford’s radiator. The Expedition’s engine dies—I can see over the hood of the Tundra that the whole engine compartment is caved in. I hear the starter grinding louder than the crash of my own heart, and then there’s a crack as the starter breaks.

  A reek of burned rubber and smoking exhaust rolls over the scene. I stare through rising steam at the darkened, cracked windshield, and the vague figure behind it, someone who seems to be struggling with an air bag. And then the passenger door opens, and a small, cursing woman staggers out.

  I break into helpless laughter. And because I still have my phone in my hand, I punch the button that will start recording video and aim the camera lens at the driver.

  “God damn it!” screams Melody Chastain, she of the dog. “God fucking damn it!”

  Her hair is long and stringy and unwashed. Her eyes are not quite focused. She waves a fist at me.

  “This is all your fault!” she yells at me. I roar with laughter, holding the phone high and hoping my cackling doesn’t shake the picture too much.

  “Motherfucker!” Melody kicks the Tundra, slips, and falls on her butt.

  “Motherfuck piss bucket!” she screams. With a certain amount of effort, she manages to get to her feet, and then staggers in a raging circle, shouting curses and waving her fists.

  By now a considerable crowd has gathered. Melody is being recognized, and people are taking her picture with their handhelds. People are calling 911. The Honda’s driver has gotten out of his car and is standing there, helpless with shock, holding his insurance card in his hand. I’m gasping for breath and spluttering with mirth.

  I’ve been terrified for months, and it turns out I was scared of Melody Chastain, the star whose career I had unintentionally destroyed with my video of her kicking the dog. Someone must have told her that I was responsible for her career death; and back in May, when she saw me crossing Rodeo on my way to meet Dagmar, she was unable to restrain her thirst for vengeance.

  I decide I’m going to stop feeling sorry for her.

  A police cruiser pulls to a stop, and the officer gets out. As the cop approaches, Melody sees him, shrieks, runs toward him, and hits him in the sternum with her little fist.

  Her capacity for kinetic damage is severely reduced by the fact of her not being inside an oversized Ford, and the officer is more surprised than hurt. Still, he reacts with the impersonal professionalism we expect from the police of Beverly Hills. He grabs her, whips her around, tosses her against the Expedition, and unholsters his Taser.

  Melody gets hit with three hundred kilovolts of street justice and goes down twitching. At this point the crowd gets between me and Melody, so I stop recording and walk off to find Simon, who’s in the Impala stuck in traffic half a block away.

  “What happened?” he asks.

  “I’ll tell you later,” I say.

  I review the video and it’s about as gratifying as I can imagine. I email it to Kari Sothern with the note, YOU OWE ME TEN GRAND.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Our Reality Network

  Live Feed

  LadyDayFan says:

  How many people are in jail now for trying to kill Sean Makin?

  Hippolyte says:

  This has to be a game, right? Or a publicity thing?

  TRACKING SHOTS

  Here’s what happens in my fantasy. I call my new lawyer, and this is what I tell him:

  “Talk to Melody Chastain’s lawyer. Tell her that I won’t press charges for attempted vehicular homicide if she checks into a secure facility for some no-nonsense head shrinkage. And I mean someplace serious, someplace they won’t let her out until they’ve installed some heavy-duty impulse control.”

  I’m feeling benign about the whole thing. Maybe it’s because I finally found out who’s been trying to clip me. Maybe it’s because I’m living the dre
am. Or maybe some of Roheen’s selflessness is rubbing off on me.

  But I really don’t see how jail would improve Melody. She’d come out more homicidal than ever, and maybe next time she’d use a more practical weapon, like a shotgun.

  Except that this isn’t what happens, and it’s all because of the cell phone cameras that were recording the accident. There I am on all the videos, a foot taller than anyone else in the crowd, and—being a newly certified international film star—completely recognizable. The detectives who interviewed me after Joey’s death see me on the video, and next thing you know I’m talking to them, and they’re pissed I didn’t call them first. I end up confirming that it was Melody who’s been trying to run me down for the last four months.

  And then, within a matter of hours, Melody’s been declared a person of interest in the deaths of Jaydee and Nataliya, and maybe even Joey.

  So it looks like Melody’s going to be doing time after all, maybe even for some crimes she didn’t actually commit.

  So now Melody Chastain has become another one of the casualties that seem to accumulate around me, and in her case it’s for the second time.

  That night, feeling a bit unsettled by all this, I go to the premiere of Part IV of Escape to Earth, which is being held on the Caltech campus. Apparently Dagmar went to school there or something. There are thousands of students and fans swarming around, and my guards are extra-alert. But I do manage to talk to some of my fans, and I manage to connect with one tall dark-haired girl who is exceptionally pretty, and she accompanies me to my suite at the Lang Towers, where she submits with considerable amusement to a search for hostile electronics on the part of Simon and Astin. I think they’re a little disappointed to discover that she’s not carrying any spy gear.

  Soon after, I subject her to a longer, much more detailed search. Nothing unexpected is discovered. I’m beyond joy, beyond delight. I’m able to forget Melody. It’s like waking up from a long, horrible nightmare.

  Saturday morning I bid farewell to my fan-of-the-night, and then dedicate the rest of the weekend to moving all my stuff to my new place. Simon stands by and guards me as movers carry boxes and my old shabby furniture to and fro. I check out of the Lang Towers and move into my new home.

  I’m having second thoughts about renting the condo, and now I’m thinking of maybe keeping it as an office. That way I’d still have access to the condo’s swimming pool and other facilities.

  Now my house is as much like a fortress as Simon’s techs can manage—there are cameras, motion detectors, heat detectors, and glass-break detectors. My armored car won’t be ready for weeks, but I was impressed by the way the Toyota Tundra stood up to Melody’s assault, so I rent one, a version with a big V-8 and an extended cab so I can carry a full set of passengers. It feels like driving a house on wheels. I figure I’m safe from a collision with anything smaller than a locomotive.

  I have to make some decisions about my security now. Two people who were trying to damage me are now in jail. I have to decide if that means I’m now as safe as a newly minted—well, reminted—Hollywood star is likely to be.

  I suppose it’s barely possible that Melody killed Nataliya—since they were roughly the same age and in the same profession, she might have viewed her as a rival or something. But I can’t imagine that Melody killed Jaydee, or even knew who she was; and there’s no way she disabled an alarm at the Lang Towers and dispatched Joey.

  Which means that whoever’s been killing the crew of Escape to Earth is still among us.

  On the other hand, there’s no proof that the killer has me in his sights at all. What the victims had in common was their attendance at Joey’s party the night of Timmi’s death, but Joey was the only plausible candidate for a killer, and someone’s taken him out of the picture. I can’t think of anyone else who would try to avenge Timmi in such a wholesale fashion.

  So I reason the killer’s motive has nothing to do with Timmi. There’s something else going on; and because I don’t know what that something is, I figure I’m out of the crosshairs for the time being.

  And besides, if I’m targeted by the super-ninja who got through the alarmed door at the Lang Towers and killed Joey in his own suite, I figure there’s not much a bodyguard is going to do to stop him.

  With a degree of reluctance I decide that I no longer need Simon guarding me all the time, but I keep him and his firm on retainer in the event that I need personal protection for specific events. Which I will, because suddenly I’m very popular.

  Invitations are pouring in: premieres, benefits, parties. I’m on everyone’s A-list. I accept invites to some of the more private functions, but I don’t want to be swarmed by reporters asking me questions best asked of the police, and so I avoid the big public spectacles.

  Besides, I’m tired. I’ve spent the three summer months in front of the camera, friends have been killed, I’ve been threatened, and I’ve had to dodge a crazy star in a big Ford. All I really want to do is sleep and occasionally eat, and that’s what I do. The paparazzi haven’t learned where I’m living yet, and they leave me in peace.

  I continue to train with Master Pak. The Celebrity Pitfighter finale is just a couple weeks off. I can’t get very excited about it.

  On Monday I have a meeting with my lawyer, and he sends a registered letter to the headquarters of Babaji’s operation in the U.S., which is in Berkeley. We’re demanding five million for pain, suffering, and the fact that Babaji has been hanging on to my stolen money for all these years.

  Monday night Julian stops by and brings his bong and a monster movie. We get totally glazed and watch The Valley of Gwangi (1969), in which cowboys battle a stop-motion allosaurus in Mexico. There’s a wonderful nihilistic climax in which a bullring and a Mexican cathedral are destroyed. It’s just what I need.

  On Tuesday night I’m drowsing on my sagging couch when the phone begins to scream at me. I grope for the phone on the scarred coffee table and knock over a nearly empty take-out container of ginger beef from the local Thai restaurant. I grab the phone, look at the screen, and decide I’ve finally regained enough energy to handle one of my dad’s calls.

  The voice is so familiar. Again the years seem to melt away, again I seem to turn into a kid desperate for his controlling father’s approval. He asks me how I’m doing, if I’m still involved in shooting. He tells me that he downloaded my Tonight appearance onto his computer and watched it, and that I was great.

  I don’t tell him that I know he’s in the States, or that I suspect he’s broke. I just want to see how far he’s going to take this.

  “Have you had a chance to look at the resort prospectus?” he asks.

  “Costa Magnifico?” I say. “It’s ungrammatical. It should be Costa Magnifica.”

  “No one who actually stays at this resort,” he says firmly, “is going to care about that.”

  I look at my varnished open-beam ceiling. “My business manager says the place is bankrupt,” I say.

  The father is shocked. “Bankrupt!” he says. “We’re not bankrupt! We just stopped building because Phase I was complete.”

  I restrain a laugh. “The funds for Phase II are in place?” I ask.

  “They’re almost secured.”

  “What does that mean, exactly?”

  “It means,” doggedly, “that they’re almost secured.”

  I grin. “So you don’t really need my help for Phase II, then.”

  “Now is the time to get in,” says my dad. “You’ll maximize profit that way.”

  “My business manager says the stock is worthless,” I say.

  “The stock will rebound,” I’m told, “once Phase II is built.”

  “Oh look, Dad!” I say. “There’s someone at the door! I’ve gotta go. Bye.”

  I end the call and put the phone down, and I close my eyes in hopes of drowsing off again—and two seconds later the phone screams again. I figure it’s my dad calling back, but I look at the screen and see that it’s Dagmar.


  “Hi there,” I answer, surprised.

  “Richard’s on his way to you with the new script,” Dagmar says. She laughs. “Guess what? We’re getting the band back together.”

  Through my surprise I manage to stammer a few words. “We’re what?”

  “I thought of a new ending,” Dagmar says. “It’s the ending the picture should have had all along.”

  I’m appalled. “We’re going back up Parmenter Canyon?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” Dagmar says. “We may end up doing the reshoots in the studio. We’re still discussing that.”

  I want to clutch my head and yank out fistfuls of hair. Dagmar is perfectly within her rights to demand reshoots, but I’ve had enough of Escape to Earth and everything that goes with it, especially the terror, paranoia, and funerals.

  “So what’s so wonderful about this new ending?” I ask.

  In the original ending shot in Parmenter Canyon, Roheen, with Khabane’s help, manages to get to Swaziland and find the Tellurian Gate. He is on the verge of escaping to his home, but is wounded by the Steene, who then destroy the gate. In the final scene, Roheen is reconciled with the fact of his remaining on Earth, and vows to become Earth’s protector against the sinister Steene.

  “The problem with that ending,” Dagmar says, “is that Roheen loses because he’s unlucky. His failure isn’t the consequence of his decisions or those of his friends.”

  “Bad luck seems to be Roheen’s constant companion,” I point out. “That ending doesn’t contradict anything that happens before.”

  “No, it doesn’t. But suppose it’s not Roheen who’s wounded, but Khabane?”

  I begin to reply, and then the idea floods my brain with brilliant light.

  “Oh, yeah,” I say. “That is a better ending.”

  Because then the ending becomes about choice. Does Roheen abandon his wounded comrade and run for his own world; or does he give up his dreams of home and safety and rescue Khabane, just like the Tellurian angel he’s become over the last six episodes?