by Marcus Sakey
Where are you? The man who will see that I am more than just a beautiful woman. Who will love me for my heart.
Jerry sighed, rubbed at his eyes. It was good, but what now? The books all said that a screenplay was about 110 pages, but he was on page 68, and so far, Jenna St. John Simone hadn’t had any luck either becoming a star or finding the man she knew was waiting for her.
Don’t lose faith. You are of the sun—
Someone moved on his patio.
Jerry came upright so fast the computer slipped off his lap and
hit the carpet. He killed the light, stepped closer to the window. Squinted. A man’s shape was framed against the railing, barely visible in the glow of his pool lights.
A boyfriend. About once a year some brokenhearted hick from Kansas tried this. They all had visions of rescuing their girlfriends, like D’Ago the Dago was some kind of fairy-tale monster who had enslaved them, instead of a businessman who knew talent when he saw it. Though none of the boyfriends had been dumb enough to sneak onto his fucking property.
Well, this one was going to get a lesson in business. He slid open his desk drawer, pulled out his pistol and racked it. Then he tightened his bathrobe and padded through the house. Squaring his shoulders, he yanked open the patio door.
“Asshole, you’re trespassing.”
The guy didn’t move, didn’t turn around. What the hell? Jerry stepped forward. “Hey! I can see you. Turn the fuck around.”
5
Bennett turned, leaning back against the railing with his elbows propped up. The wavering illumination of the pool lit D’Agostino from below, splashing a pallid yellow over his tan and glinting off the gun in his right hand. “Hell of a view you got here, Jerry.”
“Bennett? Jesus.” The producer heaved a sigh, lowered the pistol. He had that slightly pickled motivational speaker vibe: skin too tight, teeth too white, spray-tan too thick. Still, for a man who used to boast that breakfast was best served on a mirror, he looked damn good. “Didn’t know you were back in town. What are you doing here?”
“Calling in a marker.”
“Whose?”
“Yours.”
“Hey, whoa. You said we were even. After I did the thing.” “I lied.”
“You promised.”
“I lied.” He nodded at the gun. “And if you don’t put that away,
I might decide you’re being inhospitable.”
The producer paled, and quickly tucked the pistol into the pocket
of his robe. “Sorry.”
Bennett said nothing, just let the silence deepen. Every second
was weighing on the other man, he could see that. Poor Jerry had
always been a nervous boy.
“So. What do you—”
“I’m going to be staying here for a while.”
“Great. Let’s plan dinner, some drinks. I’ll have a couple of girls
join us—”
“You don’t understand. I’ll be staying here.”
“Here? In my house? I mean,” the guy tripping over himself, “we go
back a long way, you know I’m glad to see you, but come on. I can’t—” “Jerry.”
Just saying his name was enough. The trick was always in breaking them the first time. They would never forget. After that, it rarely
took more than a hint. Didn’t matter if you were talking about a
hard guy or a TV starlet or a porn producer.
Back in ’81, Jerry D’Agostino had convinced his girlfriend to let
him shoot video, fantasy stuff—the secretary who gave her all for
the company, the cheerleader raising team spirit—promising that it
would be just for them. That was back in the dawn of porn’s golden
day, when every home suddenly had a VCR and every video store
had a back room obscured by a bead curtain. The girlfriend hadn’t
lasted, but Dago Production’s first film had done quite well, and
hundreds had followed.
Bennett had heard rumors, did his due diligence, and found out
that the Dago kept two sets of books. A dangerous move, since the
men he was skimming had ties to Vegas and New York and a habit
of leaving bodies in the desert. He’d come at Jerry sideways, offering
a business proposition, a little sideline using some of D’Agostino’s
“stars” to run a honeypot scam.
Dago had tried to pass. But in the end he’d come around to
Bennett’s way of thinking.
“So. Um. You just need a place to crash?”
“Something like that.”
“Okay, yeah, sure. I’ll ah, I’ll make up the guest room.” “Sorry, Jerry, I wasn’t clear. I need peace and quiet.” He put on
his affable smile.
“I don’t—”
“You’re going on vacation.”
“What?”
“Tonight.”
“No, I can’t, I’ve got a shoot this week. This new girl, she’s dynamite. Eighteen and tits like artillery shells. Plus she’ll do it rough, doesn’t mind choking, spitting. She’ll throat-job and moan like it’s the highlight of her day. Shit’s hot now, near-rape fantasies. They
eat it up in the Midwest.”
Bennett said nothing. Just smelled the night air, listened to the
murmur of distant traffic and the burble of the pool filter. His thigh
ached a little in the cold, where the bone had been broken a dozen
years ago. Complications on a job in . . . Dallas, had it been? “B., really, I can’t.” The man talking faster, angling and wheedling. “How about this, how about I take a room at a hotel? You
can have the house, you know, my pleasure, I want you to have it.” Ripples in the pool’s surface cast streaks across the producer’s
face. Far away, a car honked, loud and long. There was really no
need to drive Dago out of town—Bennett mostly didn’t want the
guy near him, talking too much and thinking too little—but he also
didn’t want Jerry to think that they were negotiating. So he just
slowly let his smile fade.
“I.” D’Agostino staring at his bare feet. “I’ll get packed.” Bennett nodded, turned back to the view. A police helicopter
swung back and forth in circles somewhere over Van Nuys, the
searchlight glowing. He heard the sound of Dago’s footsteps, waited
till the man was almost at the door, then said, “Jerry?” “Yeah?”
“The gun.”
A pause, and then the sound of the guy walking back. He came
alongside Bennett, reached into his pocket, pulled out the pistol. Bennett took it, held it loose, not quite aiming at the man. “And
your car keys.”
“What? How do I get to the airport?”
“Call a cab.”
Later Bennett explored his new house. It really was a nice place,
the décor a little tacky, but the views spectacular. He set up his laptop in Jerry’s office, at a desk facing the window, so that he could
look out at the city spread wide below him.
Shortly after Laney’s death, Bennett had broken into their house
and left a few things. Life had gotten so much easier these days.
God bless the Internet. Used to be difficult to get surveillance equipment, never mind streaming video, broadband wireless, scriptable
file transfer protocols.
He’d placed three cameras. The first appeared to be a carbon
monoxide detector and plugged into the wall in the entryway, with
a clear view of the door. The second, secreted in a book, had gone
on a shelf in Hayes’s home office. The final camera, his personal
favorite, was in a Kleenex box, one of those decorative types that
rich people liked, so that even their tissues matched their color pal
ette. That one he’d put in their bedroom, on Laney’s nightstand. All
three were high-res, worked in near darkness, and best of all, were
motion-activated. They broadcast right over Hayes’s wireless router,
dumping everything they recorded to an anonymous file server. Not so many years ago, Bennett would have had to sit on his ass
and watch the house himself. Now he just logged in.
All three cameras showed multiple files. Busy busy. He opened
the most recent first, starting with the hallway. The video began
with the front door flying open, men rushing in, cops with their
guns out. Moving fast and splitting up, yelling, Clear!
Interesting.
The office and bedroom cams showed the police—scratch that, sheriffs—coming in equally hard. Then, once it became clear that whoever they were looking for wasn’t there, they relaxed, wandered about. Opened drawers, glanced in closets. The audio was a little muffled, but he could hear them talking about an intruder, and
saying Hayes’s name.
So his boy was back in town.
He was about to switch to earlier files when he saw one of the
deputies glance around, then quickly open one of the dresser drawers, pull out a pair of white lace panties, and jam them in his front
pocket. Bennett chuckled. He took a screen cap into Photoshop,
upped the image size, and tinkered with the unsharp mask settings
until he could read the cop’s nameplate. “Deputy Wasserman. You
nasty celebrity crotch sniffer.” Bennett saved the file, made a note of
the sheriff’s info. Never knew, might come in handy.
The next video clip was the man who vanished. Daniel Hayes in
living color, walking into his front hall.
Gotcha.
The man looked exhausted. No surprise, given the distance he’d
covered. Bennett had a woman at American Express who’d rather
her boss didn’t know about her “recreational” freebase habit, and
based on the charges on Hayes’s card, he’d sprinted east like his ass
was aflame. Then vanished once he reached Maine.
What brings you back, Dan?
On the screen, the man stared at photographs, a shell-shocked
expression on his face. Up in the bedroom he moved slow, a glass
of whiskey in his hand, going through his own drawers like he was
looking for clues. He looked over at Laney’s side of the bed, right at
the goddamn camera, and for a second Bennett wondered whether
he’d been burned. But no; something else had obviously affected
him, the guy slipping to his knees, shaking and crying. In the next scene, the writer walked into his office like he’d never been there. Looked at his shiny award, chuckled. Then sat down at the desk, gazed out the window, and saw something that spooked him. He was on his feet, tearing through cabinets, snatching his computer. The audio caught something, a voice, but too far and too garbled. Based on the time stamp, that would be the sheriffs. Hayes sprinted out of his den, then into the bedroom, and then, nothing.
Must have gone out a window.
Bennett leaned back, tapped a finger against his teeth. What did
you just see?
There had been something off in Hayes’s behavior. Grief? Partly,
sure, but there was more. Exhaustion? The guy had driven back and
forth across the country in near record time. He had to be ragged
as hell.
You know what ragged looks like. This is something else. He
couldn’t put his finger on it, but the guy seemed . . . well, off. Bennett watched the video again. There it was. In the office,
when Daniel picked up his award. He had smiled. It was a small
thing, but it was out of place. Exhaustion and sorrow made sense.
He’d lost the love of his life, and it didn’t look like he’d slept since. So would a writing award cheer him up? Even briefly? Bennett set the video to loop and watched until he was certain.
Something else was going on. He didn’t know what, but something. Regardless, he’d gotten what he really needed. Daniel Hayes was
back in town. Bennett was about to close the video when he noticed
there were earlier files. Someone else had been in the house. The
police again?
He fired up the camera in the hallway. The front door opened,
and a woman walked in, a bag on her shoulder.
Bennett froze the image. Stared at it.
You have got to be kidding me.
I
t was risky to be out in public, but Daniel couldn’t make himself care. Too many hours in the car, in shitty hotel rooms, in his own head. He needed space and a view and a place to think. So he’d parked the BMW at the north end of Fuller, put on his ridiculous shades, and started up Runyon Canyon.
The drooping sun painted the sky a smudgy orange. A lot of people were hiking the path, dogs running orbits around them, but things thinned out when he veered off to the harder route, a stern uphill that was more dirt and sand than pavement. His quads and calves and lungs were burning in minutes. It felt good, the pain, and he made himself go hard, jogging where he could. Punishing himself. As though half an hour of exercise could make up for his behavior with Robert Cameron.
You’re not cruel. You don’t have to be.
But he remembered that cinder in his belly, the way it had flared up and made him snap. Remembered the fear in the actor’s eyes as Daniel tied him. Whether or not Cameron had believed it before, in that moment, he certainly thought that Daniel had killed his wife.
But I didn’t. I know I—
Yeah yeah.
He hit a hard stretch near the top, a narrow, steep incline that had him panting. Sweat soaked the armpits of his silk shirt. But the exercise drove out thought.
The top of the canyon came on almost as a surprise, a leveling off as he rejoined the main path. The sun was below the horizon now, though the sky was still bright. A woman in a sports bra jogged by. Two guys walking the other way paused in their conversation to watch her pass, then shook their heads at each other and grinned. Daniel felt a pang of envy at the exchange, the easy camaraderie of friends.
The trail paused at an overlook point with a tall bench and a stunning view of the L.A. Basin: Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Westwood in the distance. A million tiny Christmas lights shimmering, god knew how many people out there living their lives. Daniel mopped his forehead, walked to the edge. The hills spread out on either side, mansions with unimaginable price tags, architectural wonders with blue-green pools on broad concrete decks. For a moment he stared, breathing hard but moved by the beauty of it all.
What had happened in the actor’s trailer? Daniel honestly hadn’t realized that he had a temper like that. That there was something inside of him that could explode not just into violence, but into an enjoyment of it. When he moved in on the actor, he had been excited about the thought of hurting him, of messing up his perfect movie star looks.
Yes. But you also thought that your wife had betrayed you with him. That maybe he even had something to do with her murder. Your reaction could belong to anyone.
Daniel flexed his fingers, squeezed his right wrist with his left hand. It was sore as hell. Turned out punching someone hurt quite a lot.
And the things he was saying. That you weren’t good enough for her. What does he know about that?
It was like the tabloids. They painted one picture, a squalid, hateful image. But everything else he had seen of the life they had lived painted another.
Still. The guilt. That dream about his bloody hands, the faceless judges looming like towers. Was it possible that he and Laney had some sort of fight? He could have lost that same terrible temper with her.
And then, what? Chased her out of your house, borrowed an SUV, and ran her o
ff the road? It’s fine to question. Crucial. But don’t stop thinking.
No, though he wasn’t proud of what he’d done to Robert, it didn’t erase the facts. Too many things didn’t fit. Like the diamond necklace. If Laney was going to run out on him, she wouldn’t have needed to empty the bank account. He was just a writer; she was a star. Their money would have come from her. A weird feeling, but what the hell. It wasn’t like he’d been eating bonbons on the couch. Wasn’t his fault that the industry valued actors more than writers.
But what the hell are you? A mediocre writer in a town thick with them. Not particularly talented, not particularly smart, not particularly brave. The top of the middle of the bell curve. Robert Cameron’s words in his ears.
On second thought, decking the guy maybe wasn’t that much of a sin. Asshole. He’d claimed to be Laney’s best friend, but he’d been feeding her poison about her husband? Not the friendliest move in the playbook. Especially since he’d said, directly, that Laney had loved him. “Laney told me that your wedding was the day her life began.”
That was something. He was right to feel the certainty he did. Laney had loved him, and he had loved her, and he hadn’t had anything to do with her—
Holy shit.
Daniel froze, mouth hanging open. Then he turned and sprinted down the hill.
5
He didn’t dare drive down his block. If cops were watching, that’s where they’d be parked. Instead, Daniel left the BMW by the beach and walked back up. He made himself go slow, just a neighbor taking a stroll. When a gray security vehicle slowed, he gave them a nod and kept walking. The driver waved and moved on.
Life begins . The password clue for his laptop. And Robert Cameron had said that Laney had referred to their wedding as the day life began.
Daniel knew, he knew, that the password was their wedding date. How many answers must be on that computer, hidden behind that simple code? A date he’d seen inked on the mat of a photograph of he and Laney standing in the water in Maine, her dress hiked up, both of them laughing.
Which was great. Except he couldn’t remember what the date had been. Funny. Can’t even blame this one on the amnesia. You just can’t recall.
Yeah. Funny. Sometimes irony was so funny you wanted to shoot yourself in the head.
It took Daniel ten minutes to make it to the block that backed up to theirs. The house he picked looked unassuming from the street, the security fence almost festive with the Christmas lights strung on it. No way to tell if someone was looking out a window, but at least the street was quiet.