Ground Zero rj-13

by F. Paul Wilson

  Jack hadn’t a clue, but he needed to keep impressing Goren.

  “Well, you’ve got a couple of Agars and a couple of Cormans . . .”

  “Good, very good, but that’s not it. They were all filmed in part in and around the Bronson Caves.”

  “I’ve heard of them. They’re nearby, aren’t they?”

  “About five miles as the crow flies.”

  “Ever been there?”

  He smiled. “Lots of times.”

  “Could you show me sometime?”

  The smile faded and shutters seemed to drop behind his eyes. “I don’t think so. I have a day job.”

  “We can do it on your day off. I’m willing to pay for your time.”

  He took a step back into the office. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “A hundred bucks for what—a couple of hours.”

  Goren shook his head.

  “Then give me a pen.”

  Goren complied with obvious reluctance. On the back of the UFO festival list Jack wrote “John Tyleski—Bronson Caves” and his Tracfone number.

  “You change your mind, call me, okay?”

  “You’re missing the movie,” Goren said and closed the door.

  Jack knew the guy had to be wary, but he’d come on like a total film geek, and wanting a Bronson tour was in character. What had he done, what had he said to shut the guy down?

  10

  Jack sat through the end of High Noon and revisited Fort Zinderneuf and the Geste brothers in Beau Geste. He was too restless to enjoy them, but felt he had to stay. Any suspicions Goren had about him would be confirmed if he’d walked out after their conversation. So he hung on.

  But he sat in a back row where he could get up every so often and squint through the crack between the doors for a peek at the manager’s office. Goren had opened the door again and Jack could see a bit of the desk. He was banking on him not trusting the teenagers to close up and staying to do that himself.

  As the closing credits began to roll after Beau Geste’s bittersweet final scene, Jack took his time exiting with the thirty or so other patrons. As he passed the manager’s office he tapped on the door and stuck his head in. Both Goren and his daughter jumped at the sight of him.

  Why were they so spooked?

  “Great to see those on a big screen,” he said. “Change your mind about the Bronson tour?”

  Goren swallowed as he shook his head. “No.” His voice sounded hoarse and tight.

  Jack could only describe Alice’s expression as a frightened glare.

  “Well, you have my number if you do. And I’ll up the price to two hundred bucks.”

  Baffled by their frightened reaction, he gave a friendly wave and headed out, wondering where he’d gone wrong. Had Alice remembered him from the flight, or were they wary of any stranger who seemed overly friendly? Jack didn’t think he’d been overly anything but geeky. Had he let too much of his inner movie geek shine through?

  Well, since Godot would probably call before Goren, Jack would have to follow them home. But first to check for possible escape routes.

  On his way in he’d spotted an alley along the building’s left flank. He checked that out now and was relieved to find it blind. Exit doors, litter, a Dumpster, a beat-up motorcycle chained to a standpipe, and high walls all around.

  Two ways out—the front or the alley—both onto Melrose. Excellent.

  He slipped behind the wheel of his car down the street to watch and wait. He got his first inkling that things might go sour when the two teens left the theater and walked away. He’d assumed one of them owned the motorcycle.

  Then the entrance went dark, followed quickly by the marquee. A few minutes later the motorcycle with two helmeted riders—the passenger obviously female—roared out of the alley headed east on Melrose. Jack hung a U and followed.

  For a guy living off the books and trying to limit expenses, a motorcycle made a lot of sense. Even more sense if the legendary L.A. traffic jams lived up to their hype. The junker at the airport probably belonged to the driver. No room for luggage on a bike. Must have dragooned a friend into picking up his daughter.

  He followed them along Melrose for a few miles, then onto the 101 South ramp. Jack didn’t get much farther than the ramp. Traffic was stopped. Umpteen lanes going nowhere.

  Welcome to L.A.

  But worse, the motorcycle was unaffected. It kept moving, leaving him behind as it wove between the stagnant lanes. Jack sat and watched helplessly as it disappeared from view.

  He banged on the steering wheel a few times—just to make himself feel better—then began planning how to rent a motorcycle for tomorrow night.

  11

  Jack’s Tracfone rang at 11:10 as he was surfing his movie choices on the pay-per-view channel.

  “Hello?” said a voice he thought he recognized. “Is this John Tyleski?”

  “Speaking.”

  “This is Ernie, the manager from the Vintage Theatre. You still up for that Bronson tour?”

  “Sure am.”

  “The two-hundred offer still good?”

  “Waiting right here in my pocket.”

  “Then how does seven o’clock tomorrow morning sound?”

  “Kind of early.”

  “Sunrise is at six. You won’t miss anything. Told you I had to work. This way I get in just a little late. For two hundred, I can afford to miss an hour or two. I’ll meet you up there. Need directions?”

  “Can’t you pick me up?”

  “Nah. I’ll be biking it.”

  “I’ll pick you up then.”

  “No-no,” he said quickly. “That won’t work. It’s easy to get to. I’ll give you directions.”

  Jack used the room’s pen and pad to write them down, then hung up.

  He stood at the window and watched the thinning pedestrian parade below, then stared at the smog-smudged lights of the downtown buildings in the basin. This situation stank like the air down there looked.

  Earlier tonight Goren had looked at him like he was Sergeant Markoff, or maybe Frank Miller. Now he was up for guiding Jack on a tour.

  Why the change of heart? Two hundred bucks? Maybe. But Jack had his doubts.

  He’d have to be careful.

  FRIDAY

  1

  Despite hitting the rack around midnight, Jack found himself wide awake at 3:30 A.M. This time-zone change wasn’t working for him. His internal clock thought it was 6:30.

  He killed time showering and wandering the West Hollywood streets in a fruitless search for caffeine. The Andaz’s coffee shop was closed until seven and the Starbucks down the street didn’t open till six. This was not what he’d expected in a major city. Unlike New York, Los Angeles slept.

  Finally he broke down and asked the Andaz’s night man where he could get coffee. The guy pointed him across the street to the Sunset Plaza Hotel where the coffee shop stayed open twenty-four hours.

  Maybe he should have stayed there.

  The coffee wasn’t the greatest but it was coffee. He killed half an hour reading USA Today cover to cover and was first on line at the Starbucks when it opened its doors as the sun rose. He found things about the chain annoying—like calling their largest serving “venti” instead of just plain old “large”—but they served consistently good coffee. After a large of their “robust” coffee of the day, he felt his serum caffeine concentration reach an acceptable level.

  Back at the room he pulled the Glock from under the mattress, chambered a round, and slipped it into his right front pocket.

  2

  The directions led him back to Hollywood Boulevard and then uphill from there along Canyon Drive through a residential district. The houses abruptly vanished as he passed between two stone columns. A sign announced Griffith Park.

  The park road—Jack recognized it from dozens of films—snaked into the hills through acres of mostly scrub brush that looked sere and seared, past a picnic area and a caged kiddie playground. It ended at a small parki
ng lot with an odd sign: CAMP HOLLYWOOD LAND, whatever that meant. His was the only car about. He got out and checked his reflection in the window glass: His T-shirt hung long and loose, leaving no hint of the pistol in his pocket.

  He heard an engine roar down the road and soon a motorcycle cruised into the lot. Goren was the only rider this time. Jack watched him as he secured his bike. He wore a tight T, tucked in. It showed off his muscles but also left no place to hide a weapon. Jack saw the square of his wallet in the back pocket of his jeans, but no other bulges where there shouldn’t be. He wore sneakers—no place to hide a weapon there. Jack allowed himself to relax . . . but just a little.

  Goren stepped up to him but didn’t offer to shake hands.

  “I’ll need to get paid in advance.”

  “Sure thing.” Jack pulled out his wallet and extracted a pair of hundreds. “Here you go.”

  Goren stuffed them into a pocket and said, “We walk from here.”

  Jack gestured to the empty parking lot. “Why so deserted?”

  “It’s an unstaffed park, but tourists will be straggling in soon. Too bad a film isn’t in production. Then the joint would be jumping.”

  Not too bad for Jack. He didn’t know what it would take to get Goren to open up about what happened down there in the bowels of Ground Zero.

  He followed him across a small concrete bridge where they skirted a red-striped car gate and stepped onto an uphill dirt path. Jack noticed fresh tire tracks.

  “Somebody’s been driving along here.”

  “Looks like it, but you need a permit. I don’t want to get hassled.”

  And Jack knew why. But then, he didn’t want to be hassled for pretty much the same reason.

  Goren waved ahead along the incline. “Earth vs. the Spider had a few scenes right along here.” He pointed left to a break in the rocks. “Recognize that?”

  Jack stared a moment, then saw Kevin McCarthy, in full- blown panic mode, scramble into view and run toward him.

  “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

  Goren gave him an appraising look. “You do know your stuff.”

  “Why do you sound so surprised?”

  He looked puzzled. “Do I?”

  A couple of bends in the road, then over a low rise where Goren stopped and gestured.

  “We’re here.”

  It all looked smaller than he’d expected, but he immediately recognized the dark maw in the rocks he’d seen so many times on reruns.

  “The Bat Cave!”

  “Except it’s not a cave. Take a look.”

  Jack stepped closer and saw daylight on the other side.

  “A tunnel.”

  “Yep. The Bronson Caves are really a tunnel. It was dug through for Douglas Fairbanks’s Robin Hood. It’s got three exits into the quarry on the other side. Let’s see if you can recognize the one where Ro-Man set up his bubble machine.”

  Robot Monster . . . one of the worst, cheapest-looking, most laughable sci-fi films ever made, yet Jack felt a tingle of anticipation as they entered the cave-tunnel. Dark inside, almost black, maybe fifteen feet wide, and no more than a dozen feet high. He felt as if he’d stepped into The Brain from Planet Arous or Attack of the Crab Monsters.

  Okay, rein in the geek. That’s not why we’re here.

  But that didn’t mean he couldn’t soak up some of this film history. He couldn’t help it, he was psyched.

  The shaft ran straight through the mini-mountain, maybe a hundred fifty feet from end to end. As they walked, Jack kept Goren on his left and stayed half a pace behind, keeping an eye on him.

  About three quarters of the way through, side shafts to the left and right came into view. The openings were too small to walk through upright so he and Goren continued along the main shaft into the quarry beyond. As they stepped out into the light, Goren pointed to the left.

  “Take a look.”

  As Jack turned, Goren grabbed his right wrist in an iron grip. Before Jack could react he heard a woman’s voice behind him.

  “Don’t move or I’ll shoot you dead.”

  Jack half turned to see Alice pointing a small, nickel-plated semi-auto his way. Looked like a .38. She’d been hiding behind an outcrop along the edge of the mouth. He noticed her hand shaking, but also saw murder in her eyes.

  Jerk. He’d known Goren was suspicious of him, but never dreamed he’d involve his daughter like this. The co-conspirator theory was looking better and better.

  Best course: Play dumb.

  “What’s this? You’re mugging me? I don’t have much left after that two hundred I gave—”

  “Drop it,” Goren said, tightening his grip. Jack could have broken it, but not a good idea with a pistol pointed at him. “We know you followed Alice from Newark.”

  They did?

  “What makes you think that?”

  “You looked familiar last night,” he said, “but I couldn’t place you. Then I remembered seeing you at the airport. You passed within ten feet of us. When I asked Alice if you’d been on her plane, she remembered you.”

  Well, damn. He tried so hard to be easy to forget. But with a hyperaware fugitive, expecting trouble from all quarters, the rules changed.

  Time for a change of tactics.

  He heaved a sigh of resignation. “Okay. You got me. But you don’t need the hardware. I’m not a cop.”

  “I never thought you were.”

  “Then who—?”

  “You killed my mother!”

  The words came at screech pitch, forced through Alice’s clenched teeth. She looked bug-eyed scary, ready to pull that trigger, like she knew of nothing else in the world she wanted to do more.

  And at this range, she couldn’t miss.

  So much for the theory that she was in on her mother’s death. But if she didn’t blame her father for it, then who—?

  Later for that. Had to keep her calm.

  “I killed your mother?” He pointed to Goren. “He killed your mother.”

  “He did not!”

  “That’s what everybody thinks.”

  “But you know better!”

  Who did she think he was?

  “Look, I’m not here about any of that. I simply want to ask your father some questions.”

  “Bullshit!” That screech again. She inched the pistol forward. “She was burned alive and now you’re here to finish the job!”

  The new angle on the pistol allowed Jack a look at its safety . . . she had it in the on position.

  Sweet.

  “Easy, Alice, easy,” Goren said. He faced Jack. “We don’t want to hurt you—”

  “I do!”

  He ignored his daughter and spoke in a rush. “Look, we could kill you here and now and get away with it, but I’m sure you’ve reported back already, and they’ll only send someone else. All I want is to live in peace. You can go back and tell them I won’t say anything. I haven’t breathed a word in all these years and I’m not about to change now. I’ve proven I can keep silent. Please, there must be a way we can work this out.”

  “Don’t beg, Dad.”

  Baffled, Jack said, “Who do you people think I am?”

  A hint of uncertainty crept into Goren’s tone. “You . . . or someone connected to you . . . you tried to kill me and my wife.”

  That could simply be the story he concocted to square himself with his daughter. But he seemed to believe it himself.

  Jack looked around. “Did they ever film The Twilight Zone here? Because I feel like I just stepped into it.” He faced Goren. “I’m not who you think I am. Let go of my arm. She’s got the drop on me. Let’s discuss this like civilized people.”

  “Civilized?” she screeched.

  Goren hesitated, then released him.

  “Dad, no!”

  Jack had had enough. He took a quick step toward Alice, saw her finger pull against the trigger, but it wouldn’t move. He snatched the pistol away and pushed her into her father.

  “You forgot the sa
fety.”

  He made a show of flicking the lever as he trained it on them.

  Goren pushed her behind him. His mouth worked but no words would come. If this were one of the movies they tended to film here, he’d be saying, It’s me you want! Kill me if you must, but let my daughter go!

  Or something like that.

  Jack popped the magazine from the grip, ejected the chambered shell, then tossed the pistol to Goren. He caught it and gave Jack a baffled look.

  “I don’t . . .”

  “Like I said: I have no idea who you think I am, but I had nothing to do with anything that happened to you in the past. I heard your name for the first time yesterday. I just want to ask you some questions.”

  “Oh, God!” Alice said through the fingers pressed against her mouth. “If the safety had been off, I could have killed you.”

  Jack smiled. “Trust me, lady. If the safety had been off, I wouldn’t have made that move.”

  “How did you know to follow Alice?”

  He looked at her. “If you’ve got something to hide on your computer, Wi-Fi is not a good choice. An investigator tapped into your e-mails.”

  “Investigator?” Goren said. “Who’s investigating Alice?”

  “Someone unconnected to whatever you saw down there or what happened after. Someone with questions about nine/eleven. I’m here to find the answer to one of them.”

  “Are you with the government?”

  “Not likely. But let me get this straight: You didn’t torch your house and you’ve been on the run from somebody other than the police?”

  He nodded. “Don’t ask me who because I don’t know.”

  If Goren was telling the truth—and Jack believed he was—then Weezy was right: Something more than Islamic fanaticism hid behind the fall of the Towers.

  Conspiracies everywhere.

  “Maybe I can find out—if you tell me what you saw. Nothing you say will be recorded anywhere. Only one other person besides myself will know, and we won’t be talking.”

  “But what value—?”

  “It may furnish a missing piece to the puzzle, it may be useless. The fact that someone tried to kill you tells me it’s important. So what do you say?”