Crashed jb-1

by Timothy Hallinan

  “And what would that be?”

  “A little less than a third of what you paid Wattles.”

  “Three, four hundred?” Whelan said.

  “Nice try.”

  “Okay, five or six?” Whelan said.

  “Right in there.”

  “Bring it here.”

  I carried it to him, and he took it as reverently as if it had the head of John the Baptist on it. He turned it this way and that, looking at the play of light on the painted surface. He held it level in front of him, parallel to the floor, and examined the brush strokes. He turned it over and checked the back of the canvas. Then he lowered it, very carefully, to his lap and looked at me.

  “Why?” he said.

  “Why so cheap? Well, for one thing, there’s no middle man. This is more money than I made off the last one.”

  “You said for one thing. What’s the other thing?”

  “It’s going to require a little effort on your part.”

  “What kind of effort?”

  “A couple of minutes’ thought and two phone calls.”

  “Thought I can handle. Tell me about the phone calls.”

  I turned to Wally. “I changed my mind. I would like a cup of coffee.”

  Wally’s eyes went to Whelan, and Whelan gave him a tiny nod. Wally left.

  “Let’s start with the thought,” I said. “I need you to come up with the name of a director or producer who owes you a favor and has a film working right now, a film with a good small part for a woman in her early twenties. I’m not talking about a lead, just a few days’ worth of work, some dialog, and a few minutes onscreen.”

  Whelan shook his head. “I can tell you right now, whoever it is, she’ll take the part and forget about you. You’ll never see her again. She’ll be schtupping the cameraman. I can’t tell you how many chicks I’ve given parts to-”

  “I don’t care,” I said. “There’s no romantic relationship.”

  “Really. In Hollywood? That’s almost as big a surprise as the painting. What type is she?”

  “Think Thistle Downing,” I said.

  “Oh-ho,” he said. “I read about that myself, just this morning. Sort of sad, I guess, I mean, that was a cute little girl once. I gotta tell you, I give the lady who’s making the movie more credit for balls than sense. She’ll never get that kid on camera.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “Thistle isn’t going to do that movie. She’s going to do the one you get for her.”

  He shook his head. “Nobody will work with her.”

  “They will if you ask them to. And if you guarantee to cover the expenses if she screws up.”

  “Are you crazy? That could be a couple hundred K.”

  “That’s pretty much what I figured,” I said. “And I’m donating it, so to speak, out of the cost of the painting. So you offer whoever it is that sum of money in advance, in case Thistle screws up. If she does, they’re covered. If she doesn’t, they’ve just picked up a nice chunk of change.”

  Whelan was looking at me as though he expected me to sprout fins and gills. “So that’s two hundred,” he said. “And it doesn’t even go to you.” He shook his head. “What’s the rest of it?”

  “A hundred is Thistle’s salary,” I said. “So the producer is getting her both risk-free and literally free. A hundred and fifty is to buy her contract.”

  “To buy …”

  “Her contract.”

  He shrugged. “Sure. Her contract. So, four-fifty in all.”

  “And a hundred for me.”

  “Just a hundred. Out of all that.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So it’s all about you, wrapped in pure motives, walking on water.”

  “If you like.”

  “You gotta be crazy. I don’t do business with crazy people.” He said it with a straight face, too.

  I got up just as Wally came in carrying a ridiculously fragile-looking cup and saucer. “Sorry, Wally,” I said. “I’m going.”

  “Siddown,” Whelan said. “Wally, give the gentleman his coffee.”

  For ten minutes, I watched Whelan work the phone, and it was like watching Derek Jeter play shortstop. In less than a minute he burned through three assistants to reach someone named David, and in under a minute he’d ascertained that the part of the receptionist-“You know, the one whose nails are so long she can’t do anything?”-was as yet uncast, and had made a pitch for Thistle that was nothing short of brilliant: the publicity value, the good-deed aspect of it, how everybody in town would be pulling for her, how it was practically a guaranteed supporting actress nomination if she was any good because everybody votes for a reformed fuckup-and get this, I’ll cover the expenses and even pay her salary. Why? Because I read that thing in the trades this morning and it broke my heart, that poor little kid. You’re a young guy, David, don’t tell me you didn’t watch her every week, well, don’t you think she oughta get another chance? Yeah, me, too. No, I don’t want any credit, I’m just behind the scenes, you’re the one the Pope will sprinkle the water on. Nah, nah, she’s as straight as a string. I’m telling you, all that’s behind her, and I’ll tell you what, if you don’t think two weeks from now that I’ve done you a huge favor, you can come over here and kick me in the ass. Yeah, and I’ll wear my best pants, the silk crepe you keep asking where I got them. Okay, David, you’re a sweetheart, which days? And send the script to me and I’ll get it to her, you’re doing a great thing, bye for now.

  “Okay?” he asked me.

  “It’s a pleasure to watch you work.”

  “You said two calls. Who’s next?” He seemed to be enjoying himself.

  “This one needs a little preparation,” I said.

  We talked for three or four minutes, and he said, “Piece of cake. You got a number?” I gave it to him, and he dialed.

  “Ms. Annunziato, please. This is Jake Whelan. Yes, that Jake Whelan.” He looked at me. “Nobody answers the phone himself any more. Call your fucking plumber, you get an assistant.” He sat up as though someone had entered the room. “Ms. Annunziato,” he said. “Jake Whelan here. Yes, fine, and you? Glad to hear it. Listen, here’s why I’m calling. I read the trades this morning like everyone else in town, and I gotta tell you, it didn’t make anybody happy, I had calls all day from people you wouldn’t believe, the whole fucking A-list, it was like RSVPs for the Vanity Fair party, and they all sound exactly alike, what they’re saying. Yeah, yeah, I know you got a business, but a lot of people, they read that story and thought the same thing I did, which is, this isn’t right. So I’m telling you that a few of us got together and we’re not going to let Thistle make your movie.”

  He held the phone away from his ear and made a yacking motion with his free hand. He looked over his shoulder at Wally and made a vague gesture that was perfectly clear to Wally, who went to a heavy wooden chest to the left of the fireplace, pulled out a couple of logs big enough to ride over Niagara Falls on, and tossed them onto the blaze. Throughout all of it, I could hear Trey on the other end, going a mile a minute. After he was satisfied that the logs were going to catch, Whelan put the phone back to his ear and just started talking, without even waiting for her to pause. “Yeah, I hear what you’re saying and I know you got a point of view there, but here’s what’s going to happen. She’s going to make another movie, a real movie, not like a star or anything, but it’s gonna be something we can all feel good about, and we’ve decided to buy her contract from you. How does a hundred thousand sound?”

  I started to object, but he held up a hand. “What do you mean, it’s low? Okay, okay. I can sweeten it to one-fifty, but that’s it. And I mean, she’s not going to make your movie no matter what, so you might as well take the money and be a good sport. And also, we’re gonna let you look like an angel here, instead of being on the wrong side in a media pissing match. I mean, just how good does this sound? You announce that you’re delighted to learn that the news about Thistle’s participation in your movie has
brought her new offers, and as much as you looked forward to working with her, it’s a privilege to know you’ve played a part in helping her get a more suitable role, and you’re releasing her and you wish her all the best and blah blah blah. And we all just keep quiet about the money you’re getting. See, this way you’re like Lady Bountiful instead of being the bitch who’s trying to force America’s sweetheart into doing the dirty on film.”

  He winked at me and rubbed his nostrils. “That’s what I thought. Sure, sure you can release it, we don’t want any credit, in fact, try to get it out tonight, it’ll hit bigger, and the trades are still open. You can use my PR guy if you don’t have one, you got a pencil? Here’s his number.” Whelan rattled off a number. “His name is Skip. Yeah, I know, but that’s what he calls himself.” He rubbed his nose again and his eyes flicked longingly in the direction of the door he’d come in through. “We set, then? All clear on your end? Great, great. Love to meet you some time. I’ve thought for years that your family was one of the great American success stories, great movie idea there. Bye.”

  He hung up, swiped his nose with the finger again, and said, “Be right back. You want your hundred Gs in cash, right?”

  “Right.” And I defy you to come up with a better answer.

  Whelan started toward Powder Central, then bent down and picked up the Klee. “Just in case you change your mind,” he said. He gave it one more look on his way out of the room, and over his shoulder he said, “It really is better than the other one.”

  43

  I can hurt

  The thing about Laurel Canyon is that it isn’t really anywhere, but it’s sort of close to everywhere. It’s not the Valley, it’s not Beverly Hills, it’s not Hollywood or even West Hollywood, but they’re all just around the corner, at least in terms of LA distances. It’s a nice fifteen-minute purr in the Rolls or the Bentley, or an eleven-minute hop in the Porsche, to anywhere the canyon dwellers might be most likely to go.

  And it was just a few minutes, even during rush hour, to where I was headed.

  My watch made it 6:20. The world was mainly headlights and rain, plus the drama of the occasional fallen branch, supernaturally wet and leafy, in the middle of the road. Long red spectra of brakelights traveled the night, as the car ten or twelve ahead of me slowed and glowed red and passed it on to the one behind, and so on until my own foot hit the brake and left me motionless on a shining street, the car standing still while my mind moved a million miles an hour, mostly in unpleasant directions.

  But I learned a long time ago not to linger on the things that might kill me. If you’re not capable of figuring out how to get past all that and move toward solutions, it would probably be better not to break the law for a living, which, despite the appeal of short hours and long pay, more or less guarantees that you’re going to be in constant contact with dangerous people. And once in a while, in the natural order of things, one or more of these people will want to do you harm.

  But this was ridiculous. I’d been a career criminal for seventeen years, and I’d never had so many people willing to stand in line to make me dead. And what had I done? One little burglary, and a contract job at that. I’d stolen something from someone who could afford to lose it, who in the larger scheme of things was entirely unharmed; I hadn’t taken the presents from under some poor kids’ Christmas tree or mugged some domestic worker and grabbed her week’s pay. I’d ripped off a couple of pictures from a rich man-a gangster, for Christ’s sake-and it felt like the whole world was pointing guns at me.

  It was enough to get me mad. I don’t get mad often, but I get mad thoroughly. I was already absolutely greased about Jimmy’s murder, and now I was getting mad on my own behalf, too.

  I finally made it through the light at Mulholland but instead of dropping down the other side of the hill into the Valley I turned left and followed the Drive north along the spine of the hills, the clouds to my right pale and spectral with the light from the Valley floor. Up here, the rain was a little thinner than it had been at Whelan’s chateau, or so it seemed. I wasn’t really paying attention to it. I was sorting things in my mind: first this, then that, what if this, what if that? No matter what order I stacked things, there were still a couple of wild cards. I was barely conscious of having swung left onto Coldwater as I started back down toward the Los Angeles basin.

  A few minutes later I made the right I’d been looking for and stopped the car about halfway up the hill. I didn’t want headlights or noise to announce me. Feeling like I was on a fool’s errand, and that I didn’t know anyone better qualified to run one, I hiked on up the hill, sticking to the asphalt to keep my feet from getting any wetter than necessary until I realized I was already soaked to the bone. Where was Jake Whelan’s Mr. Umbrella when I needed him?

  I cut to the right, heading around the big gate, the rain coming down heavily enough that I didn’t have to worry about the sound of my feet in the grass. The sky went white above me, and the landscape brightened for an instant, flat as paper and highly detailed, and a moment later heaven growled and then the growl died off to a bottom-heavy grumble.

  The flash of light had reoriented me. I knew exactly where I was, and I knew that I needed to take the path to the right, following the slope of the hill. Despite the reduced visibility in the rain, despite the tall bushes everywhere, I found myself moving bent at the waist, trying to reduce my silhouette, trying to remain invisible as long as possible.

  The pathway curved again and widened, and I could feel, rather than see, the bulk of the big gray stone, and just as I knew for certain it was ahead of me, the world lit up again, and I saw Thistle’s dad’s rosebush and, in front of it, the crumpled form, the out-thrown arms, the sopping clothes, the tangle of soaked hair, the long smears of black, no, red, running down the soaked blouse, and as clearly as if she had been standing behind me I heard my daughter’s voice, heard her say: dead wet girl.

  “You’re home,” I said into the phone. At the sound of his voice it felt as if something had been lifted off my heart. We were tearing down the hill at an unwise speed.

  “I am,” Doc said.

  “Don’t go anywhere. I’m coming as fast as I can.”

  “Ummm,” Doc said. “This isn’t a good-”

  “No. Whatever you have to do, no. I’ve got Thistle, and she needs attention-some stitches, maybe some blood, and God knows what else. Just stay where you are.” I closed the phone and followed the curve of the canyon to the right, and Thistle toppled across the seat toward me, dead weight, and landed against my shoulder. She said, “Uuhhhhh.”

  “Hang on,” I said. “You’re okay now. You’ve lost some blood, you’re exhausted. We’re going to see Doc, and he’ll get you back together.”

  “No,” she said. It was barely a whisper.

  “No? No what?”

  “No. No shots. Don’t want …”

  I said, “Fine.” She put a hand down on the seat to push herself upright, and I said, “Careful, you cut that hand to ribbons. You’ll be lucky if you didn’t slice a tendon.”

  “Cut him,” she said. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her bare her teeth. “I cut him.”

  “I know. I saw the blood.”

  “Jennie,” she said, her spine straightening slightly. “Wendy.” “They’re okay. A friend of mine has taken them somewhere else.”

  “I want … I want to see.” She stopped talking and let out a rush of air. Her head was hanging down, and the ropes of wet hair caught the headlights of an oncoming car. A drop of water detached itself from one of them and began its fall, and then the light was gone.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “Listen, you can talk to them. I gave them phones. Do you want to talk to them?”

  “Yes. Please.” She turned her head, and she was smiling. “They were … brave,” she said.

  “I know, I was there. Hang on, let me get them. I punched in the speed-dial and said, “Take it with your right hand, the one that isn’t cut.”

  “ �
��Kay,” she said, stretching out the hand, and at the sight of the slender fingers, the intricate and harmless frailty of her hand as I put the phone into it, the anger I’d been feeling about the situation I was in, about all of it, exploded in my chest. It was a thick red smoke, so real I could feel it in the back of my throat and so harsh I could taste it. I had to force myself to focus on steering the car. People were going to pay, if not for what they wanted to do to me, then for what they’d already done to Thistle and Jimmy.

  “Wendy,” Thistle said in a voice like ripping silk. “You, you … guys, you’re okay.”

  I could hear Wendy’s voice, high and excited, on the other end of the line, and after a moment, Thistle gave a ragged little laugh. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m fine. Wet. Junior says … says you went somewhere.”

  Wendy talked and Thistle listened as I made the left onto Ventura, heading for Encino, for Doc’s house. “Quarter-pounder?” Thistle said, telling me where Louie had taken the girls for dinner. “Oh, you luckies,” she said. “I want-no, I don’t want-I don’t … I don’t want anything. I’m glad you’re okay.” She closed the phone without saying goodbye. “I hurt,” she said.

  “Almost there,” I said. “Doc’ll give you-”

  She said, “Where I was.”

  “Where-what? What do you mean, where you were? Rose Haven? Your father’s-”

  “The movie,” she said. “I was … I was going to do …”

  “You didn’t,” I said. “You won’t have to.”

  “It’s okay to hurt,” she said. “I can learn to hurt.”

  I said the only thing I could think of. “You’re stronger than you think.”

  “I’m a fuckup. But I can hurt.”

  “Let’s take care of the cuts,” I said. “Then I think you could use about two days’ sleep. Hang on, honey, we’re here.”

  I pulled the car to the curb. Doc’s house was a low cinderblock one-story, what they used to call a rambler, probably built in the early fifties, with a picture window looking out on a small front yard. Someone had drastically over-pruned the orange tree to the right of the sidewalk, cutting the branches back almost to the trunk. The stripped tree made the yard seem barren. The street was wide enough for tanks to pass each other, and a streetlight shone right down on us: a nice, safe neighborhood. I went around, opened Thistle’s door, and leaned across to undo the seatbelt, since it fastened on the left side, beneath the ravaged hand. Then I helped her out and she leaned against me as we went up the sidewalk to the door.