The Martini Shot

by George Pelecanos

  I worked on the script for episode 114 for the rest of the day. I skipped lunch and drank hotel coffee, and as the afternoon sun blasted through my windows, the page count mounted. Usually, it wasn’t this uncomplicated, but now I had only to sit there at my desk and type. It was easy.

  That night, I walked up to Gino’s, a bar and grill that was a half block from my hotel. It was Steak Night. I ordered a New York strip, medium rare, a wedge salad with bacon and blue cheese dressing, and a glass of California red. I sat at the stick and ate my dinner alone.

  When I returned to my room, the message light on my phone was blinking. Annette had called. She wanted to know if she could come upstairs.

  We sat on my couch and drank Merlot, listened to music and talked. I told Annette to lie back. I removed her shoes and put her feet up on my lap and massaged them. This relaxed her completely. Soon we were making love there, and on the carpeted floor, and on the bed. We came powerfully, almost at the same time, atop the sheets.

  Afterward we stayed in bed and drank more wine in the candlelight. She asked me what I’d done the night before, and I told her everything. I couldn’t lie to her. I couldn’t even stretch the truth.

  “Are you mad at me?” I said.

  “No. And I’m not surprised.”

  “Anyway, no one got hurt. It’s over.”

  “Is it?”

  “I think so,” I said, but I knew she wasn’t speaking of the event. She was telling me that she knew my nature.

  “What was it like?” she said. “Was it a movie?”

  “In a way. I don’t even know what I said or didn’t say when I went into that house. It’s like I imagined half the shit that went down.” I had a sip of wine and placed the short glass on the nightstand. “I was scared, Annette.”

  “I bet you liked that, too.”

  “Maybe. But Barry wasn’t afraid.”

  “Barry’s a gangster. You’re just a guy.”

  “You think so?”

  “Just a stupid guy.”

  There was no humor or affection in her tone.

  We were combustible lovers, and we’d be together until the end of the shoot. But I’d lost her, I knew.

  “Tonight was really beautiful,” I said.

  She turned into me. “It was perfect.”

  Call, as it always was on Mondays, was very early. I was up at four thirty a.m., due to be on set at six.

  The long van ride to the first location was strange without Skylar. Gandy was with us, and though he was a good guy, we were still getting used to his taking our friend’s place. Van Cummings made it more palatable by playing most of Danny O’Keefe’s classic Breezy Stories, through a cable from his iPhone. Van had introduced the record to Skylar, and it had become one of his favorites. As “Portrait in Black Velvet” came forward, all of us listened with contemplation and regret.

  We arrived on set and I received my sides. First scene up was in a bar that catered to females (INT: DOLLY DAGGER’S, DOWNTOWN—NIGHT) and had Meaghan O’Toole (as Mackenzie Hart) interviewing a “friend” of the victim who’d been murdered by the shoe fetishist. The network liked the idea of setting the scene in a gay bar where the women were attractive and could be shown in provocative outfits (“lipstick lesbians,” it said, so artfully, in the script). At the same time, the suits were keenly aware that they had to portray the culture with sensitivity and correctness, if only because that was the way the country’s winds were blowing.

  Meaghan arrived on set wearing an outfit that was unusually feminine for her, probably because she wanted to avoid any suggestion that she herself was butch in any way. The truth was, no one knew or cared about her sexual proclivities. Most of us assumed she abstained, which had earned her many colorful nicknames—Corncob, Sahara, and the like. Or, as our rigging gaffer so indelicately put it, “That woman has cobwebs in her snatch.”

  Bar scenes required many extras, props, fake beer and wine, fake ice, and fake cigarettes, and they created matching issues with crossings and background. We were also shooting day-for-night. Everyone was working very hard. The scene was rehearsed, blocked, lit, and slated. We rolled the first take.

  “More shmoke!” shouted Eagle to the effects guy, whose sole job was to work the smoke machine and blow it into the room. Scandi DPs loved smoke for some reason, and in the monitor the shot looked like a scene from Backdraft or something out of an Adrian Lyne film. But bars did get smoky, and the look of the master could be corrected in post.

  I was more concerned with the acting and the tone of the scene. The day player cast as the “friend” was very good, too good in fact for Meaghan, who didn’t care to be upstaged. Meaghan was very clever, and she turned her head in profile, even when she was supposed to be looking directly at her fellow actress, so that her face would be visible in every shot, thereby making herself the focal point of the scene, something we would not be able to fix in the editing room.

  Lomax caught it and said to me, “Should we say something?”

  “Let it go. Just get a couple of clean close-ups on the friend.”

  I didn’t have it in me that day to pick a fight.

  During lunch, served in the auditorium of a Masonic temple near set, Barry approached me at my table and asked if he could see me outside. Beside me was Kenny, who ate his fried chicken and pretended not to hear our conversation. I followed Barry out to the street, to a blind corner where he handed me a plain brown envelope.

  “There’s your money,” he said. “My nephew coughed it up. Too late, but still.”

  “Forget about this,” I said. “And thanks.”

  Barry said, “Right.”

  Indeed, neither he nor Kenny mentioned the incident at the house again.

  An office PA came to set with a large FedEx envelope at my request late in the afternoon. I went to my trailer and wrote a note to Skylar’s connect in California, telling him that this took care of the debt and that his business with Skylar was concluded. I added that I would consider any further contact from him or any of his agents a breach of etiquette, and if they did so, I would contact the law. I put the money in the envelope, used the Los Angeles address that Laura Flanagan had given me, and sent the package back to the office with the PA, with instructions to overnight it immediately.

  Walking back to set, I saw Laura, sitting on the steps of the costume trailer, smoking a Marlboro. She pitched the smoke aside and stood to meet me as I approached.

  “Victor.”

  “Hey.”

  “I’m glad I caught you. I’m leaving in a few days.”

  “Where you headed?”

  “I took a job up in Brooklyn. A friend hooked me up. It’s an HBO show; they shoot mostly at the Steiner Studios.”

  “A period thing, right?”

  “Yeah, it’s set in the twenties.”

  “That’ll be fun for you. Creative. With the costumes, and all.”

  “I hope so. I should get out of here, don’t you think?”

  “It’s best.”

  Laura slipped off her aviators and placed them atop her head, so she could look me in the eyes. “Thank you for putting me up in the hotel, Vic. And for everything. You’ve been a good friend.”

  “Don’t forget me on your rise to the top.”

  She laughed and hugged me spontaneously, then broke away. “Don’t forget me.”

  “I better get back,” I said.

  “See you.”

  She had a rough road ahead of her. The series she was going to was a meat grinder, eight months of sixteen-hour days. She was on the frail side, not a fighter, and quiet. In our business that was seen as a weakness.

  I walked back to set.

  The next day we shot out by a marina on the lake, which was wide as a bay, where in our story the father of one of our young police officers owned a shrimp boat. There were several scenes set on the boat in this script, and the plan was to knock them all out in one day. It was pleasant to work outside, and I was enjoying it, but halfway to lunch I got
a call from Ellen on my cell, asking me to return to the writers’ offices. Detective Joe Gittens wanted to speak with me in person.

  Gittens was waiting for me in my office. He was on my couch, his legs spread wide, wearing a nice brown suit with thin chalk stripes. A fedora with a red-and-gold feather in the band was beside him.

  “You look clean today,” I said, shaking his hand before I took a seat behind my desk.

  “I got all gussied up for you.”

  “Where’s your partner? Getting a facial?”

  “Dennis is just a little aggressive, is all. I left him in the office today.”

  “So what’d I do now?”

  “Your tip paid off, Ohanion.”

  “Oh?”

  “Couldn’t get a search warrant on Wayne and Cody’s house, so we waited for them to leave their place of residence. They were driving that Mexican-looking Toyota you described. ’Bout a mile from their place, they stopped at a red light…”

  “Let me guess. The front tires of the Supra were over the white line of the intersection.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “Police officers in my hometown used to pull kids up for that all the time. Then they’d toss the car.”

  Gittens snapped his fingers theatrically. “That’s exactly what we did!”

  “And you found what?”

  “Marijuana and paraphernalia, of course. And, oh yeah, a gun.”

  “A revolver, I bet.”

  “S&W thirty-eight.”

  “You ran tests?”

  “Gonna take a couple of days to do the ballistic fingerprinting. That’s where we match the striations on the slugs to the barrel of the gun it came from.”

  “I know the process.”

  “Course you do. You’re a crime writer.”

  “I’m betting it’s a match.”

  “We’ll see. But here’s the thing. We already struck gold.”

  OHANION leans forward in anticipation.

  OHANION

  How’s that?

  GITTENS

  The revolver had shaved numbers. And our boy Wayne, Brown’s his last name, has prior convictions. Multiple priors, in fact. How would you put it in one of your scripts?

  OHANION

  He had a rap sheet as long as my arm.

  GITTENS

  Right. That’s an automatic jolt. Wayne’s going away for five years.

  OHANION

  And Cody?

  GITTENS

  Him, too. They did everything in pairs. Even their felonies. Now, if we do get a match on that weapon, they’ll both be lookin at long time.

  OHANION

  You got lucky.

  GITTENS

  Routine traffic stop, came up gold. It happens.

  OHANION

  I guess you won’t be needing any further assistance from me.

  GITTENS

  No, I don’t think so.

  OHANION

  How’d Wayne and Cody take it?

  GITTENS

  Cody made some racially insensitive remarks to me at the time of his arrest. It hurt my feelings, somewhat. Funny, all those Aryan Nations tattoos he’s got, and he talks like a brother. I really think those two are a couple of confused individuals.

  OHANION

  They probably had a disadvantaged upbringing.

  GITTENS

  I feel for ’em. I do.

  GITTENS stands, puts on his hat, shifts his shoulders in the jacket of his suit.

  GITTENS

  (continued)

  What do you think? Would you give me a cameo? My wife thinks I look like Richard Roundtree.

  OHANION

  Is your wife blind?

  GITTENS

  Funny.

  OHANION

  Maybe we can work you in.

  GITTENS

  Have your people get in touch with my people. Hear?

  GITTENS leaves the office.

  ON OHANION.

  A week later, Bruce Kaplan called me into his office. He and Ellen had been talking quietly, grimly all that morning. I’d been around long enough to know what was coming, and I wasn’t surprised.

  Behind his closed door, I sat before Bruce’s desk. Memorabilia of his past successes and near successes crowded the room. He’d drawn the blinds, as a doctor does when he’s about to give a patient bad news. Bruce looked heavy and tired.

  “We’ve been cancelled, Victor. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s nobody’s fault. We did our best.”

  “The numbers weren’t there. They’re dropping in fact, week to week. The suits considered reconfiguring the cast, but ultimately they felt it best to pull the plug and move on.”

  “It’s just business.”

  “We’ll tell the crew after we wrap. I don’t like to do that, but people will jump ship. There’s only two weeks left on the shoot, and Ellen and I want to finish strong and under budget. It’s a point of pride with us.”

  “The crew will find work. They always do.”

  “As will you,” said Bruce, and he picked up my script for 114 off his desk. “This is really good. Did I tell you?”

  “Yes, you did. Thank you.”

  Bruce opened the script to a page he had dog-eared. “‘My man got his self snipped.’ Snipped. Where did that come from?”

  “It means murdered.”

  “And, ‘he rotted him.’ That’s some authentic shit.”

  “I’ve been keeping my ear to the street.”

  “It shows. I’m going to submit this one for a WGA award.”

  “Great,” I said, with little enthusiasm.

  “You’ll be fine, Vic.”

  My agent had been fielding offers as of late. I’d find work, if I wanted it. Hundreds of cable channels, original content, streaming…there was always work for a whore like me.

  “I don’t have to tell you,” said Bruce, “you need to keep the cancellation a secret.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  Soon as I left his office, I phoned Annette and told her that she needed to start looking for a new job.

  The day after the wrap party, we had a service for Skylar Branson in the city’s largest park. We met around a weeping cherry tree the production had planted in his name. His parents had flown back in from Galveston, and there was a woman in vestments who said some vague, nondenominational words about Skylar’s spirit, and many crew members, some of whom I’d see on other productions, some I’d never see again. Annette was there, looking stylish in black with a touch of flair, and Laura, who’d returned for the day from Brooklyn and would leave that afternoon. Some local musicians, neo-folkies Skylar hung with, played a couple of traditional songs on acoustic instruments, and then the ceremony broke up. That’s what’s left of you, I thought. A tree.

  I walked back to my rental car with Jerome Hilts, our dolly grip, who was wearing a clean polo shirt and cargo shorts for the occasion.

  “What do you think, Victor? What’s it all mean?”

  “If I knew that, I wouldn’t be writing television scripts. I’d be writing my manifesto.”

  “Nobody’s gonna remember us.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  “But we gotta keep working. I’m headed up to Baltimore, for a Netflix show. You?”

  “Raleigh. I’ll be running the writers’ room for a Cinemax thing.”

  I was due there in a week. I hadn’t even read the pilot. Something about a hit man in Nixon-era America. I would read the script and the bible on the flight back to Delaware, where I planned to visit my mother. I hadn’t seen her for a long while.

  “We’re the circus,” said Jerome. “We just pull up our tents and move from town to town.”

  “That’s right.” I squinted bitterly against the sun. “We’ve got sawdust in our veins.”

  The next morning, I stood outside my hotel and helped Annette load the last of her trunks into her Grand Cherokee. She was headed back to her home in Wilmington, North Carolina, where she and her husband ha
d bought a house just before his death. But she would only be there for a few days.

  “I guess that’s it,” she said, as she closed the hatchback and brushed an errant strand of hair away from her face. We’d been up all night making love, and still, she looked lovely. I ran my hand down her bare arm.

  “You don’t have to do this,” I said.

  “I took a job, Victor.”

  “In Hawaii. You might as well be going to China. I could get you on this thing I’m doing in Raleigh. I could talk to the EP.”

  “We went over this many times last night. I took the job. We’ll see each other again.”

  “When?”

  Annette put her hand behind my neck, pulled me into her, and kissed my mouth.

  ANNETTE

  I love you, Victor.

  OHANION

  I love you.

  ANNETTE

  Don’t be sad. Think of how lucky we were to have found each other.

  OHANION

  I don’t want you to leave me. How can you? You always said we were perfect.

  ANNETTE

  Then we’ll leave it perfect.

  ANNETTE turns, gets into her Cherokee, and drives away.

  ON OHANION, alone.

  FADE OUT

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to my longtime editor, Reagan Arthur, of Little, Brown, and my literary agent, Sloan Harris, of ICM. Thanks go out as well to James Grady, Otto Penzler, Johnny Temple, Dennis McMillan, and John Harvey, who were the original editors of several of these stories. This collection is dedicated to Charles C. Mish and Estelle Petrulakis. Charles Mish taught a class in crime fiction, which I took as an undergraduate at the University of Maryland in 1979. He turned me on to novels and convinced me that all good writing, regardless of subject, has worth. It is not an exaggeration to say that Mr. Mish changed the course of my life. Estelle Petrulakis taught Sunday school with my mother at St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral for more than twenty-five years and was an elementary school teacher in some of D.C.’s most impoverished neighborhoods. Mrs. Petrulakis gave me books throughout my childhood and always encouraged me to reach for something greater than I thought I could achieve. There is usually one teacher who makes a difference in a person’s life. I had two.