High Fall

by Susan Dunlap

  “Well, okay,” he said slowly. “You know Lark was her real name. Guess that gives you an idea about her parents. Old hippies. Musta done a lotta drugs early on. But when I knew them, it was liquor. They weren’t abusive or anything, but they didn’t pay on time. If they said they were going to do something, like provide cookies for one of the fundraisers, you could count on them to flake out—and be pissed off if you brought it up. Stuff like that. Who knows what else? Lark was real protective of them. As soon as she was old enough, she worked to cover her tuition. But parents like that—well, it had to be hard on Lark, as meticulous as she was.”

  And working there extra hours had given her a valid reason to be not at home, Kiernan thought. Had Lark, like herself, stayed out too late, flirted with boys in leather jackets with slicked-back hair, taken on every dare and stretched it farther? “Did she have a wild streak?”

  “Far from it. She was the most responsible kid in the gym. With those parents, I guess she’d have to have been.”

  Kiernan felt a flash of separation, and disappointment. The good kid, one of those she had scorned. “Was she a natural athlete?”

  “No way. She had a sort of physical dyslexia, like there was a roadblock between the concept of a trick and getting her body to do it. Good athletes don’t even have to think about most of their moves. But Lark couldn’t even dribble a basketball without watching both the ball and her hand. And even then anyone could have made a steal.”

  “How did she survive in gymnastics?”

  “Determination. Lots of personal attention. Centuries of repetition. With that roadblock of hers, we had to build bypass highways—that’s the way we talked about it—but once they were in place, they were as good as any other road. When she finally ‘got’ a trick, it was so well-etched into her map that she could do it on automatic. She wasn’t particularly creative or imaginative, but she was a craftsman par excellence.”

  A craftsman. She was disappointed. But maybe that was why Lark had mastered the Gaige Move when she hadn’t. She had always been the kid who took chances, the one who had to leave her imprint on whatever she did. She could have been the kid to take the Move farther, if she could have gotten the Move itself. And yet Lark … “So once she’d practiced a routine and checked the layout, she’d go into automatic?”

  “More like she’d go inside. If you’re not an athlete, it won’t make much sense to you.”

  Kiernan’s jaw tightened. She hadn’t competed in over twenty years, but still, to have him assume she was on the outside with her nose pressed against the glass … even though he thought he was talking to a publicist, not to Kiernan O’Shaughnessy, who had taken second in the Nationals …

  “Look, you said you were with the studio. Lark was very good. Why do you need to know more—”

  “Sorry,” she said, shifting back into persona. “I know you’re busy. I’m afraid I got sidetracked, because it’s so impressive to know she could have accomplished so much with that handicap. Inspiring. She would have been a wonderful teacher.”

  “That was our hope for her. But she was too good to stay up here in the mountains. She wanted the Olympics, of course. They all do. She wasn’t that good, but she thought she was. Too bad she never got to the trials.”

  Never even got the chance to try for it! God, she felt for Lark. It was like finishing college only to be told they’d stopped giving diplomas, or stopped giving them to people like you, or just to you. “Why not?”

  “Her parents.” The disgust was clear in his voice. “Ray,” he called, half muffling the receiver, “cover for me a few minutes, okay? Sorry,” he said, returning his attention to the phone conversation. “I guess you’re aware that Lark’s parents were killed in an auto crash. Happened the week before the trials. Lark was devastated. I don’t know which bothered her most—their deaths or missing the trials. Well, at that age all that stuff mixes together, and kids don’t know themselves what they’re overwhelmed by. But Lark was never quite the same after that. In a way her life was easier without her parents to worry about. But I guess it was too late for her to have a childhood. She threw herself into practice with as much determination as before, but the hope was gone. And why not? She had no goal. And then she decided on Hollywood, a career in the movies. I had my reservations, I’ll tell you, but the girl was a beauty, and I figured that would get her the extra time she needed. Guys will always give a pretty woman a break.” He lowered his voice, and Kiernan had the feeling he had his hand cupped over the speaker. “We’ve got one little girl now—plain as porridge. But good; she can do release moves on the uneven bars like no ten-year-old I’ve ever seen. Do you think the judges ever give her a break? The cute ones they give the benefit of the doubt, an extra tenth here, an oh-five there. But this kid—it’s like they think she made herself plain just to spite them. You’d think adults would have a little compassion; or fairness.”

  She sighed. “Yeah, you’d think. Mr. Talbot,” she said slowly, “you had hesitations about Lark coming to Hollywood. Why? Did she seem too trusting?”

  “Hardly. Look, the girl had had a lousy childhood. It made sense that she was locked up emotionally, like she lived inside a moat. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t want to trust someone. She was probably afraid; maybe she didn’t know how. In some ways she was an adult; in others a kid. You know how teenagers are. She’d have a crush on a guy, and she couldn’t set limits or see consequences. Guess that was her parents coming out in her. They had no sense of limits at all. Luckily, Lark was a busy kid, so she didn’t have time to go off the deep end much.”

  “Did you talk to her a lot after she got to L.A.?”

  “Never. I was hoping to hear from her, though. Kids in the gym were dying to know what it was like to be a real stunt woman.”

  “I can imagine. Did you ever call her?”

  “Had no number for her. I thought she’d call us, or maybe I just hoped. I guess I wasn’t surprised. You know how kids are,” he added, as if fearful that he’d said too much.

  “Just one more question. How did Lark get to Hollywood, into the movie business?”

  “She called someone down there for a screen test. Then she just up and went. Said she wasn’t going to miss out again.”

  “They don’t do screen tests for stunt doubles. Stunt players get known by word of mouth. If they’re called, they send in tapes of their work.”

  “Guess Lark knew the right mouth.”

  “Whose?”

  “Got me. You’re with the studio. I assumed he must be one of yours.”

  “Did you know,” she said quickly, “that Lark added an extra twist to the Gaige Move?”

  “Really,” he said, the pride clear in his voice. “But you mean up there on the bluff, when she died.”

  “Right. But she did it. She took the Move to a new level. But how did she do that? You yourself said she wasn’t creative.”

  “Got me. She must have learned it down there.” From the gym came sounds of a crash. “Gotta go.”

  Was Cary Bleeker the man Lark had called? If not, he’d know who was, or he damned well could find out. Replacing the receiver, she glanced at her watch. It was after three. No chance of her making La Jolla before six, or more likely seven. Now the big question was, would Bleeker and the film company still be there.

  CHAPTER 20

  “YOU’RE HOME, TCHERNAK?”

  “You calling from the car?” Even though he didn’t mention his oft-repeated dictum—phoning and driving should be mutually exclusive—Kiernan could hear the censure in his voice.

  She didn’t approve of the distraction for other drivers. And she tried to avoid it herself, but not, as she had been quick to point out to Tchernak, because she wasn’t competent. Her goal was to keep both hands on the wheel in case she could slice into the left-hand lane, whip around a four-wheel slug, or block an eighteen-wheeler from cutting in front of her and plodding along in first gear, or do any of a number of things Tchernak tagged “adolescent.” But the
lure of speeding was not a temptation that she was likely to face on the I-5. “If it weren’t for lifting the phone, there’d be no movement here at all.”

  “Huh? Oh, you’re on the freeway and you didn’t give the CHP time to clear a lane for you?”

  “Sarcasm is so unattractive in hired help.”

  In the background she could hear panting. She smiled. Tchernak himself sounded short of breath—the familiar “doing reps” breath pattern. “How was the Edge of Disaster set?”

  “Didn’t shoot today,” he got out between great heaving exhalations that almost blocked out the increasingly enthusiastic panting.

  “Summit-Arts canceled the day’s schedule? Because of Lark’s death? More sensitivity than I would have expected.”

  “Had to. Police questioning.”

  “Rats, so we’re back to the start.” She slammed on the brakes inches from the fender of a vintage Corvette that had jerked to a stop. “The Mercedes behind me’s been riding my tail since I got on the freeway. Volkswagen behind him’s just about in his trunk. Guy in front of me’s squirting suntan lotion and he’s got his head tilted back so far he could be looking me in the eye. He’s so busy slathering his face he can barely handle his phone.”

  “He driving with his knees, Kiernan?”

  “He’s not driving at all. A pickup just cut in front of him. Oh, shit, look at that! A panel truck floated in behind the pickup. With the amount of room he’s left in front of him, the Queen Mary could cut in!”

  “Maybe he’ll grease the phone and drop it in the fast lane. No, wait, what was I thinking of? You’re in the fast lane, right?”

  “There is no fast lane. I’m merely in the more easterly line of seats. But the guy in the Corvette, he could have had his face lifted in less time than he’s been working on it. I’ve been watching that face for half an hour, Tchernak; the only thing his work is doing is proving the Law of Diminishing Returns.” She edged the car forward.

  “Fortunately, the opposite is true here.” Tchernak’s breath sounded more normal. In the background the panting was more evenly spaced but no less insistent. “You are about to appreciate how valuable an experienced offensive lineman is in our investigative business.”

  Our business—just what she’d been afraid of. “My business.”

  “Offensive linemen don’t give up,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “I hung around the set. Never got near Bleeker, but when the grips—the heavy-duty movers, to you uninitiated—needed help, who do you think they were thankful to have?”

  “What about their union?”

  “There were no reps on the sets. And the grips thought I was union.”

  “Good work.” She eased off the brake a bit, balancing it against the gas on the slight upgrade. Ahead, the Corvette driver was lathering his neck. “And so you found … ?”

  “I cocked an ear when the cops were around. They’re still real comfortable with the drug theory. They didn’t react when Pete, the sort of middling grip, mentioned the markers on the bluff. They didn’t ask about them being moved.”

  “But you did?”

  “Right. Pete’s sharp; he’s been a grip on four films, but he’s not the key grip. So if something wasn’t up to snuff, it’s no skin off his nose.”

  “Gentlemanly mixing of metaphors there. So Pete said?”

  “Anyone could have moved the markers. There were so many people rushing around that nobody would remember where they were when or who else was with them. There’d been a flood of reporters earlier, then the last line of trailers had to be moved forward to accommodate the city; everyone was jumpy. The scene right before Lark’s ran to seven takes. They were scurrying to get hers in while there was enough light.”

  “What was his impression of Lark? Savvy? Naive? Competent? Careless?”

  “Well, he found her physically desirable—”

  “Euphemistically put?”

  “Believe it! His take was, she was good, but she was getting a helluva chance in Edge and she didn’t seem appreciative. Driven was the word he used. Like she was on a mission. Like it would all bloom at her press conference.”

  “What kind of flowers was Pete expecting to bloom there? Something Dolly or Bleeker didn’t want revealed?”

  “That was his guess, but it was only a guess. He was halfway across the set when she was talking to the city press liaison. What Pete did say was that with all the media fuss and the waiting, Lark was edgier than he’d ever seen her. Her and everyone on the set. Makes sense.”

  The traffic began to move. Kiernan eased on the gas, wedging the phone against her shoulder and poising her hand on the gear stick to shift into second. The Corvette shot forward. She shifted and hit the gas just as a stretch limo cut in front of her and screeched to a halt. Simultaneously, she hit the horn and the brake. The phone banged to the floor.

  “What was that?” a small voice yelled up from the rubber mat.

  She scooped up the receiver. “Traffic.” Before Tchernak could reiterate his cellular phone axiom, she said, “Have you gotten the backgrounds from BakDat?”

  “Persis promises she’ll have them to me before you get home.” The panting was louder, faster, more insistent.

  “Well, Persis is in luck. I’ve got to catch Cary Bleeker first. So she’s got about four more hours. Do you have any idea where Bleeker is now, or will be by the time I get to La Jolla?”

  “In his trailer on the set. At least, that’s what he told the cops.”

  “Okay. I’m going directly there. I’ll be home for dinner afterward.”

  “Uh, Kiernan … ?” Tchernak began in an uneasy tone, entirely too hesitant for a man used to butting into defensive linemen.

  “Yes?”

  “As long as you’re going to be there anyway, do me—do us a favor.”

  “What can I do for us?”

  “Well, see, I tried a couple of the spiced garlic rolls. They’re great, and there’s something in the herbs and spices that takes them to a new realm. The chef should forget this movie nonsense and market them nationally. But that’s his lookout. I just want the recipe, so I know what those spices are. And I couldn’t get the cook out of his kitchen to tell me.”

  “Tchernak, you want me to ask for a recipe?”

  “They don’t know your history; they won’t laugh at you.”

  Kiernan chuckled. “And I was worried you’d get so involved in the investigation, you’d forget your job at home.”

  “You laugh, but the next time you want a lasagna before you meet a client, you’ll be sorry I don’t know those herbs and spices.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. Now, let me speak to him.”

  “Geez, Kiernan, you’re not going to do that. You know you’re using a cellular phone; anyone could hear.”

  “Tchernak!”

  “Okay, okay. It’s your funeral. It’ll serve you right if the Corvette’s listening. Here he is.”

  Ignoring Tchernak’s familiar plaint, she listened for the happy slurp on the receiver and said into the mouthpiece, “Ezzzzraaaaaa, what a fine dog.”

  Ezra gave a little bark.

  “Such a good dog. Ezzzzz …”

  The sun was lurking low on the water by the time Kiernan pulled up—rumpled and grumpy—at Gliderport. The sea wind had tossed over one of the black reflectors, leaving the panel balanced precariously against a trailer, its dark shadow snaking beneath the trailer bed. Her jacket, which had been too hot for Los Angeles and the car trip, was inadequate now, and the wind ran icy fingers down her sweaty back. Her face felt gummy, her legs rubbery from the drive, and she would have given her right arm—well, no, not a whole limb, but a carpal digit—for a bourbon on the rocks.

  Had Dolly called to warn Bleeker? She would have had ample time. She stopped by the Summit-Arts security guard and flipped open the pass she’d gotten from Uberhazy. “Which trailer is Cary’s?”

  “Last one on the right.”

  The set, which yesterday had looked like an over-d
eadline construction site—with people racing back and forth, hauling equipment, driving equipment, and yelling about equipment and lack of equipment—now seemed like a still photo. The giant crane was gone, no longer daring ambitious stunt doubles to climb up its slick arm, all the hundred feet to the top, to balance there high above the earth, and there feel the wind in their hair, know the decelerator wire was hooked onto their backs, and step off into nothingness. The giant catering truck was gone, probably back at the local production offices for the night. The canteen wagon-size hitch trailer in which Tchernak’s coveted garlic polenta rolls were fried was still there but closed, its metal awning fastened. She felt a pang of regret about the recipe. She would have enjoyed giving Tchernak something. Their unspoken agreement was give and take; it worked for both of them, and it didn’t work for either. She put in as much as Tchernak, but her offerings were the easy ones—money—or an okay for an abrupt week off to work out with a specialist in Arizona. Tchernak had pulled a psoas muscle the day he’d arrived in Tucson and limped painfully home. It had taken more than she’d thought she had to ease the pain that stretched from his spine to his thigh, from anger to frustration, and hovered just above the scalding surface of fear. Giving up gymnastics had been wrenching, but she’d been stepping off the giant crane into a net of promise. And there’d been college. She’d offered Tchernak her knowledge of the pain and terror—silently, the only way she could, the only way he could accept it. But stepping off the crane was one thing; being shoved off, and without any net, was another. It might be that nothing would keep him from crashing to the ground.

  Not a good role for a woman with no bedside manner.

  Two rows of silver trailers formed a sort of picket fence, demarcating the hard sand set from the hard sand beyond. Bleeker’s trailer was in the far row—an indication of low rank, Kiernan figured. The more valued “names” did not have windows at the edge of the parking lot into which an adoring fan might peer.

  “Who?” Bleeker demanded wearily in response to her knock. He sounded as if he’d spent the day being rolled under every piece of equipment he’d yelled about the day before. And now, his tone indicated, he was going to have to face one more bulldozer.