The Rough Cut

by Douglas Corleone

  ‘What about the past half-year, all the while we were filming?’ I say. ‘What’s changed?’

  ‘I don’t know. I guess I feel like we’ve just lived through the climax after holding our breath the past six months.’ He grips me by the waist and pulls me to him. ‘Now that we know the ending, we can finally turn to the epilogue. The happily ever after part.’

  I should keep quiet, I should just shut up. ‘There were losers in this too, though.’

  ‘I get that, and I’m not trying to discount them. I’m talking specifically about you and me and our film. We can finally move on to the next phase of our lives.’

  He wants an answer.

  Truth is, I don’t know yet if I’m ready to move on. But I don’t say so. Instead I lean in and kiss his neck, feel the shiver run through his body.

  His eyes fall on my monitor.

  ‘What are you working on?’ he asks, in a tone carefully measured to preserve the mood.

  I put my lips to his left ear, whisper, ‘The night Ethan ran.’

  He presses his body against mine. He’s excited.

  Softly, he says, ‘That footage is so dark and shaky.’

  I take his earlobe on my tongue, run my lips over it and feel him shiver again. In the center-left of his cargo shorts rises Little Perry Mason, the name we jocularly bestowed upon his sizable member during trial.

  Through the linen, I take him in my left hand.

  ‘I don’t need all of it,’ I say. ‘Just Ethan’s words when he first saw me on the rocks at Kaena Point.’

  ‘The audio’s grainy.’ His voice suggests his mind is far off. ‘How about Church’s performance on the phone?’

  ‘The Great Stall?’ I ask, slowly working my fingers up and down. ‘I’ve turned it into a montage.’

  He grips the back of my head, presses his lips to mine, probes my mouth with a renewed passion.

  The conversation is over.

  As we kiss, I eye the box of malasadas with a shameful twinge of hunger.

  I move my hand faster.

  I think about the rough cut.

  Think about Kaena Point.

  Think about that night.

  Think about Ethan’s voice as Brody moans.

  I think about Ethan’s touch, even as Brody comes.

  THIRTEEN

  On H-1, at the cusp of dusk, I sat in the passenger seat of the white Jeep Wrangler we’d nicknamed the Yeti, gnawing my nails. Brody remained silent, the radio off, the soft top down, as it had been for a week. Tonight, though, I thought it might rain. Even on a cool, clear evening like this, weather in the islands could restyle itself without notice, especially where we were heading: Oahu’s westernmost point.

  Back at Church’s suite, there had been as much commotion as one human being could generate. Brody and I had shrunk back against the sliding glass door, ready to bolt, while Church paraded back and forth past an invisible jury rail, spewing expletives like legal arguments.

  Every five minutes, the phone rang.

  Every fifteen minutes, Church answered.

  ‘I understand, Detective, he’s just getting his affairs in order …’

  ‘Any minute now, Detective. He’s just, uh, cleaning himself up …’

  ‘To be frank, we are photographing him, Detective – all of him – in case your boys decide to beat him silly with billy clubs in his sleep …’

  ‘Here’s the thing, Detective. We’ve decided to go in another direction with the whole ass-beating thing. Now we’re doing what they did to Ed Norton in 25th Hour: kicking his ass before he goes inside so that he looks too tough to fuck with, too ugly to rape …’

  ‘He – and this is embarrassing, Detective – he has the runs …’

  ‘IBS, Detective, he’s still in there, and God help us out here once he opens the door …’

  ‘Damnedest thing, Detective …’

  Amid Church’s tennis match with Fukumoto, Nate finally called back, only not with information, not with Ethan’s whereabouts; he had no idea where his brother might be.

  ‘You guys grew up together,’ Church said over speakerphone, ‘you had to have your private spots. Like that tree in the woods where you stashed your first Playboy? Or that pond all the kids went skinny dipping in after dark? Maybe that cave where you joined in your first circle jerk?’

  Church had already phoned a local private investigator named (I shit you not) Tahoma Kaihanaiku‌kauahkahih‌uliheekahaunaele to check Manoa Falls, the spot where Ethan and I initially met last week.

  Following some thought, Nate said, ‘We grew up in Waianae but haven’t been there in years. As for hanging outside of our town, we went to spots all over the island.’

  Church rolled his eyes. ‘Examples?’

  ‘We were friends with some military kids who lived out by Barbers Point.’

  Church pulled up a map of Oahu on his phone. ‘That’s right near here, I’ll take that one. What else you got?’

  ‘There’s a park over by Koko Head we used to play ball at.’

  ‘That’s near you, Nate. You check that spot. Give me another.’

  ‘Uh, I guess we went out to Kaena Point a few times.’

  ‘That’s all the way at the westernmost tip of the island.’ Church zoomed in on his map. ‘Looks a little rocky around there.’

  ‘Yeah, you need a four-by-four.’

  ‘BQ and Riles have a Wrangler. They’re here, they’re listening. Head them in the right direction and give them a sense of this place.’

  ‘All right,’ Nate said, as Church headed for the kitchen, ‘you guys are going to take Farrington Highway all the way out to the very end of the road. There’s a chain across the road, with a sign that says, “Authorized Vehicles Only”. Take the chain down, put your Jeep in four-wheel drive, and take the unpaved path as far as you can. Wear your seatbelts; it’s a bumpy ride. After a few miles, you’ll reach a point where even the unpaved road is washed out, so you’ll have to park there and go the rest of the way on foot. Bring flashlights. It’s very dark and very rocky. You can break an ankle, or worse. Anyway, hike that to the very end, and stop once you hit ocean.’

  ‘How far is that exactly?’ I asked.

  ‘About three miles.’

  My jaw fell.

  ‘All right,’ Church said, a Stella Artois in hand, ‘BQ and Riles are on it. Updates as necessary.’

  Once Church disconnected the call, I said, ‘Kaena Point sounds like a shot in the dark.’

  Church grinned. Set down his beer. Slapped his palms together. ‘Which is why it will make spectacular footage if you find him there.’

  Forty-five minutes later, Brody and I reached the end of the road. The paved road at least. Raindrops dotted our windshield as Brody put the Wrangler in park, removed the chain with the ‘Authorized Vehicles Only’ sign, put the Wrangler in four-wheel, and stepped lightly on the accelerator.

  Seconds later I felt like Matt Damon in his rover traversing the terrain of Mars. To his credit, Brody proceeded as heedfully as possible. Still, every other inch of the ride was either a steep ascent or steeper descent, the tires seldom agreeing on a single direction. I grabbed the oh-shit bar and held tight.

  ‘This isn’t going to help my herniated cervical disc,’ Brody muttered.

  The anti-road went on for just a few miles but took us twenty-six minutes. By the time we reached the spot where a vehicle could travel no further, it was full dark and raining hard.

  ‘Stay in the Jeep, babe,’ Brody said. ‘I can do this.’

  I’d already opened my door. ‘I have to speak to him,’ I said. ‘You and he haven’t really exchanged two words.’

  ‘I’ll get the camera. You going to mic up?’

  I hesitated. ‘Yeah, of course I am.’

  Our odds of finding Ethan at Kaena Point had increased somewhat substantially since Church, Nate and Tahoma had all come up empty in their own searches. Last I spoke to Nate, he intended to phone all friends and family. Last I spoke to Church, he decla
red he’d be at the hotel bar.

  As Brody and I clambered over a mile of rocks, trudged through another of wet sand, and finally landed on something resembling a hiking path, I pondered what Ethan’s running said about his guilt or innocence. Conventional wisdom held that the guilty run, the innocent stay and fight to clear their name. But then, as Brody wisely pointed out, ‘If you were innocent, would you want to leave your fate up to twelve people who are able to take months off work without being missed?’

  Slogging through foot-deep mud, three miles felt like the length of the island. To make things more interesting, my iPhone’s flashlight kept blinking out. Brody couldn’t use his camera to light the way because he’d forgotten to charge his spare battery and didn’t want to risk us missing the scene if we located Ethan.

  As we neared the water, Brody stopped short, froze his phone’s flashlight, and gripped me by the arm. ‘Shit, Rye. There’s someone over there.’

  I tried to focus on Brody’s beam of light. ‘I don’t see anyone.’

  ‘Over there,’ he said, lowering the beam a little. ‘Splayed out on the ground.’

  In the editing room, Brody and I bite into our malasadas. Into the fattening filling, into the fattening fried dough. I don’t give a shit, I’ve earned this. I want to pig out, want to devour the malasadas then hit that Moroccan and Lebanese eatery on Nuuanu Avenue. I’d start with some baba ghanoush then move on to the kofta sandwich. As I chew the malasada and nearly orgasm just thinking about Middle Eastern food, I glimpse Brody’s newly shaven face and those dimples I’d all but forgotten.

  ‘I love you,’ I tell him.

  He turns to me, surprised. ‘You never say that.’

  It’s true; never first, anyway. There are people who say, ‘I love you’ and people who say, ‘Love you, too.’ I’m neither.

  ‘Are you done working for the night?’ he asks.

  ‘Not even close. I want to at least edit Ethan’s audio and play it over the B-roll of Kaena Point at night. I’m eager to see how it all comes together.’

  ‘Church may want us to cut that, you know. He thinks it’s too self-serving and looks staged.’

  ‘Church tried the case he wanted to try. I’m going to make the movie I want to make.’

  Brody takes a bite of his malasada and doesn’t reply. He has a fondness for Church that’s irritated me this whole time. So desperate is he for a father figure that he would literally take in the homeless if I let him. The homeless in Honolulu move Brody to tears some nights. Growing up with no father and a borderline mother, he knows that it might have been him setting up a tent, begging for spare change, waiting to get shooed away by police. It’s something he’s feared his entire life. As he jumped from job to job, from school to school, he never felt safe, never felt settled, not until we moved to Hawaii.

  Here, thousands of miles away from his mother, Brody can kick back and enjoy life in a way he never could back east. Days after we arrived, he discovered his ‘perfect spot’ on Waikiki Beach. Spent time there every morning, smoking his bowl, absorbing crime novels. As I prepared for the movie we as yet knew nothing about, Brody learned to surf, drank oversized beers at Lulu’s, and listened to music ‘to support the arts’. It was a happy time for both of us. I enjoyed the work and it was nice seeing Brody having the time of his life. Especially nice that he was having it with me.

  Brody aimed the flashlight at his target, still some distance away. ‘Right there, see?’

  ‘I see a few boulders.’

  ‘Well, that boulder just moved. That boulder is a human being.’

  ‘Shoot from here,’ I said, as soon as I observed motion myself. ‘I’ll go over and talk to him.’

  Brody placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. ‘Wait, we don’t know that it’s him.’

  ‘Look, the tide splashes right up near those rocks. No one who isn’t suicidal would sleep there. It’s got to be him.’

  I started down the rocks, focusing the flashlight on my feet. Rain was falling harder, water accumulating in my sneakers. My drenched clothes made me cold, colder than I’ve ever been in Hawaii. Brody had at least had the sense to wear his weathered black Mets cap, the frayed brim protecting him from all but the most aggressive rain. Meanwhile, every drop from sea and sky slapped me straight in the eyes. Me, with all those fancy fucking hats at home in my closet.

  ‘Ethan,’ I called, when I thought I might be close enough. But I could barely even hear myself over the winds, over the tide, over the teeming rain. Onward I went into a blackness that seemed to be waiting for me, until finally I froze like a child at the top of the basement steps.

  ‘Ethan,’ I yelled again in the direction of the boulders.

  A soft sound returned from roughly that direction. I placed my hands in front of me and hurried down the slippery rocks. Maybe Ethan was injured, I thought, maybe he tried to hurt himself. After a few seconds of my standard worst-case-scenario thinking, I was terrified at what I’d find when I reached him.

  When a flash of lightning lit the sky, I saw him lying in the sand with his back to me. I took several brisk steps then stopped dead at the crack of an incredible thunder I could feel in my stomach. Then my iPhone’s flashlight blew out, stranding me in the ink.

  Slowly, blindly, I started again and, as I neared him, his presence became palpable. Even over the smell of the ocean, the rain on the rocks, I could tell he hadn’t bathed. When I finally reached his prone body, I stopped, petrified for a moment, then went slowly to one knee. Gently placed a hand on his bare back. Said, ‘Ethan?’

  The moment I did, he swung his head in my direction and growled – ‘wuuahahhhaaaaa’ – like fucking Chewbacca.

  I screamed some obscenity as I fell backward into the mud.

  Flat on my back but uninjured, I was thinking Ethan’s breath was for shit, when a second ‘boulder’ suddenly awoke from its slumber and sneezed in my face.

  There were four in all. Humongous (maybe 400 pounds each) but harmless – Hawaiian monk seals. An endangered species with only 1100 left in existence. Suffice it to say, I’d never encountered one before. Certainly never had one sneeze in my face. I pushed myself to my feet, promised the seals I’d donate a thousand bucks to the Marine Mammal Center if I sold my film, and was about to move on when from far off I heard: ‘Riley!’

  Although the voice rose from the darkness it didn’t sound like it was emanating from where I’d left Brody. For a moment I thought I’d gotten turned around, but how turned around can you get on a piece of land jutting into the sea? There was ocean on three sides of me.

  Then I felt his touch. Ethan’s.

  ‘Riley, what are you doing out here?’

  ‘I don’t know, sight-seeing? What the hell do you think I’m doing out here?’

  ‘It’s a downpour, though.’

  ‘Then you shouldn’t have picked tonight to run.’

  ‘You don’t understand. I can’t do time, Riley. I’d rather fucking die.’

  ‘I get that, I do. But if you’re going to kill yourself, at least wait until after trial.’

  ‘I might never have the opportunity again, and you know that. I go inside tonight, get denied bail in the morning, get convicted, that’s it, that’s the end. My window is closing fast.’

  ‘What’s the plan here, Ethan? Just to throw yourself into the ocean?’

  He looked out at the sea as though he hadn’t really thought it through. ‘You don’t think I’d die in that water?’

  ‘I think you’d eventually die. But I also think you’d have a hell of a rotten last half-hour. Didn’t you used to be a professional surfer?’

  ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘Don’t you think your instinct to swim will take over once you’re in the water? Were you at least going to pack rocks in your pockets?’

  He smiled. In the darkness, in the downpour, it lit the night.

  If I got him to smile, I thought, maybe I can talk him back.

  I said, ‘People get away with murd
er all the time. You never know what will happen at trial. You never know what a jury will do. And let’s face the ugly truth about American jurisprudence. It doesn’t hurt that you’re Caucasian. Doesn’t hurt that you’re so attractive. We get a few women on that jury—’

  ‘You think I’m attractive?’

  I was suddenly very aware of the fact that my nipples were fully visible through my sopping white shirt.

  ‘Come back with me,’ I said. ‘Church thinks we have a really strong shot at bail.’

  As I said it, I noticed the chest Ethan’s own shirt clung to, my eyes lingering longer than proper under the circumstances.

  Emboldened, Ethan stepped toward me, placed his hands either side of my waist.

  ‘I’m scared,’ he said.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘It’s like you said, though. About anything being possible at trial? About the jury being a bunch of random idiots.’

  ‘I don’t think I said that exactly.’

  ‘Well, that’s what’s scaring me,’ he said. ‘The evidence looks bad, makes it look like I did it. And I didn’t, Riley.’ He gazed deeply into my eyes. ‘I didn’t kill Piper. I never laid a finger on her in violence, ever.’

  ‘I believe you,’ I said.

  And I did.

  Kinda.

  Sorta.

  Maybe.

  The ride back to Ko Olina was silent. Brody drove, Ethan in the front seat, me in the center-back with the wind pummeling my saturated head and clothes. Yet I felt good, I felt alive. Felt like everything was falling into place. We’d avoided returning to the mainland bankrupt. We’d discovered an extraordinary case which, no matter what else, contained all the essential elements of a good true-crime story: sex, drugs, violence. A stunning young upscale white woman dead, a dashing Caucasian defendant with talent. Awful, true, to think in those terms. But, as Professor Leary said the day I first revealed my passion for tabloid justice: ‘Well, I suppose someone’s going to give the people what they want. Might as well be someone capable of reshaping the genre. Maybe even reshaping the justice system.’