No Cure for Love

by Peter Robinson

“Goes to show what?”

  “You never can tell what might happen on a stake-out.”

  Her eyes flashed with humor as she spoke, but she held Arvo’s gaze long enough to make him a little hot under the collar. Maybe the three-month hormonal freeze was coming to an end.

  Before he could respond, the door opened and a young man in his mid-twenties walked in. Good-looking, in an Iowa farm-boy sort of way, he was about six-two, slim build, with hair the color of wheatfields in August, and he was wearing a navy blue suit that had seen better days. He also looked as if he had been drinking. His face was flushed, his eyes a little wild, and his brow was oily with sweat.

  Sandi, in the middle of the floor with a tray full of mixed drinks for the birthday party, looked at Arvo and nodded vigorously. Arvo started to edge his way out of the booth.

  Because they hadn’t been able to pinpoint where Chuck lived or worked, the idea was to get him out of the bar with a minimum of fuss and have a good talk, point out the error of his ways. Sometimes it worked with the simple obsessionals. But the best laid plans of mice and men . . .

  Chuck glanced around nervously, saw Sandi and walked right over to her. While Arvo was still stuck between the table and the bench, Chuck pulled a gun from the inside pocket of his suit and pointed it at her head. It looked like a .38 revolver.

  Sandi screamed and dropped the tray. Glasses shattered and booze splashed everywhere. The mingled smells of gin and bourbon filled the air. Everything became very quiet for maybe a couple of seconds while everyone in the place took in what was happening. Then the bar staff ducked down behind the counter, and the people in the birthday group screamed and dived under the tables.

  Shit, thought Arvo. Whatever the rule book or the training courses said about situations like this didn’t seem to count when they really happened. All you could do was keep talking, keep calm and try not to get yourself killed.

  Arvo slid out of the booth and walked very slowly over to Sandi. He knew that Maria was behind him, still sitting, covering him. If anything went wrong, he hoped she was a good shot. He prayed he wouldn’t have to find out.

  Chuck flicked his eyes sideways at Arvo and licked his lips. “Stay there,” he said. “You stay right there or I’ll blow her brains out. I mean it.” He had the gun pointing at the side of Sandi’s head.

  Sandi whimpered and shook. Arvo stood still and held his hands up. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll stay here. I’m not moving. But we’ve got to talk, Chuck.”

  “What about? Who the fuck are you anyway? You her new boyfriend?”

  “No, Chuck. I’m not her boyfriend.” Arvo told him who he was. As he spoke, he felt himself shift into what he called no time. He’d been there twice before: once during a hostage-taking in Detroit, and again during a domestic intervention, similar to this one, in Van Nuys. The first time, he had successfully talked the hostage-taker down; the second time, the ex-husband’s gun had jammed. It was no time because you had no time to do anything but talk. It was no time because time seemed suspended. And it was no time because that might be all the time you had left.

  “A cop?” Chuck scowled at Sandi. “Bitch. I might have known.”

  Arvo had to keep his attention, get his focus away from Sandi and calm him down. “Look, Chuck,” he said, hands spread in the open, “why don’t you put the gun away and we can talk?”

  “What about?”

  “Your problems. Whatever you want. Just put the gun down.”

  Chuck laughed harshly. The gun wavered in his hand but remained pointed in the general direction of Sandi Gaines’s head. “You want to talk about my problems. Man, that’s a laugh. The minute I put this gun away you’ll have me on the floor and be beating the shit out of me like I was Rodney King.”

  “That’s not true,” Arvo said softly, “and I think you know it. You’re smarter than that. Put the gun down, Chuck.”

  Chuck licked his lips again. Again, his gun hand wavered, but he didn’t put the weapon down. He didn’t want to fire it, Arvo could tell, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t.

  “Ask her what my problems are,” Chuck said, glaring at Sandi. “Ask her why I’m here in this state, all to pieces. I can’t sleep because of her. I lie awake thinking about her all night. How much I want her. How much I love her. The black bitch. Black witch. She’s put a spell on me. What’s wrong, Sandi? White man’s meat not good enough for you, huh?”

  He pushed the gun closer until the barrel was touching Sandi’s temple. She flinched. Sweat prickled on Arvo’s brow.

  “Chuck,” he said as calmly as he could, “this isn’t helping matters at all. You don’t want to hurt anyone. I know that. You know that. But accidents happen. Give me the gun and we’ll sit down and talk like rational human beings, okay?” He held out his hand.

  Chuck looked at the hand, then ignored it. “Rational?” he echoed. “She didn’t behave like a rational human being, did she? She never even gave me a chance. What is it, Sandi? They really do have bigger cocks, your own kind? That it? This not big enough for you?”

  He fumbled at his fly with his free hand.

  “There’s no need for this, Chuck,” said Arvo. “Come on, give me the gun. You’re making everyone nervous.”

  “Let ’em sweat. I get no sleep because of this bitch. I get headaches. Here. This not good enough for you?” His dick hung limply out the front of his pants. “Why don’t you kiss it, bitch! Why don’t you go on your knees and kiss it.”

  “Oh, God. Don’t kill me. Please!” Sandi wailed.

  Chuck was crying now, passing his peak like a roller coaster on its way back home. Arvo figured if he could get through the next few seconds there might be a chance that they would all get out of the place alive.

  “Come on, Chuck,” he said, holding out his hand. “We can talk about this. I know we can. You’re an intelligent man. You don’t want to hurt anyone. Give me the gun, Chuck.”

  Chuck looked directly at Arvo for the first time, his face slick with sweat, tears flowing down his cheeks. Arvo held eye contact for what seemed like hours, aware only of the sound of the streamers fluttering in the draft, but at the end of that time, he knew he had him. The man was a habitual loser, just desperate, trying a little harder than usual to succeed at something, at anything.

  “Ah, what the fuck,” he said finally, shoulders slumping. “It’s only a replica anyway.” He handed the gun to Arvo, put his dick away and zipped up his fly.

  Arvo felt like smashing his stupid face in. Instead, he gritted his teeth and patted Chuck down. Though he was sure the man would hardly use a replica when he had a real gun in his pocket, it was best to be safe and follow routine procedure. He didn’t bother with cuffs. That could wait until a patrol car arrived. Chuck wasn’t going anywhere right now. He looked like a man who wanted to talk.

  Sandi dashed off to the washroom, hand over her mouth. Slowly, the members of the birthday party started peeking from under the table and getting to their feet, all a little sheepish now it was all over. Pretty soon, Arvo thought, they’d be indignant. They’d start asking for their money back, replacements for the drinks that got spilled, maybe even threaten a lawsuit. He’d seen it happen before. Then they’d embellish what had happened for their friends, be the center of attention at parties.

  The bar staff stood up and dusted themselves off. One of them poured himself a stiff shot of Scotch. Arvo nodded to Maria, who went to call Hollywood Division, then led Chuck by the elbow to one of the booths and jammed him in the corner.

  Chuck wiped his face with a napkin. The tissue was so thin that it shredded and pieces stuck in little clumps on his cheeks and chin, like the bits of paper you put over shaving nicks.

  “I’m glad it’s over,” he said. “You know that? I’m glad it’s over. I feel such relief. I haven’t slept for two weeks thinking about her. You know that? You know what that does to your mind? I loved that woman. Do you believe it? Loved her. She treated me like dirt. I couldn’t kill no one, man.”

&nb
sp; “Calm down, Chuck,” Arvo said. “You only dated her a couple of times, isn’t that right?”

  “So? What does it matter how many times I dated her? Don’t you believe in love at first sight?”

  Arvo sighed and wondered if he should give an honest answer. If truth be told, he’d lost a fair bit of sleep over Nyreen, too. Before he could say anything, though, Sandi stormed over to the booth and stood over them, hands on her hips. “Now look what you’ve done, you piece of white trash. A whole tray. You’re gonna have to pay for them drinks.”

  Chuck fell silent for a moment, mouth open, then he started laughing through his tears. Arvo almost felt like laughing with him.

  Sandi just stood there, eyes flashing, and Chuck looked at Arvo. “Isn’t she unbelievable? Isn’t she magnificent?” Then he turned back to Sandi, adoration clear in his eyes. “How about bringing me a drink, honey? Make it a Martini. Very dry. With a twist.” He glanced at Arvo again. “And maybe one for my friend, here, too.”

  Arvo shook his head. One of those days. Then he heard the welcome sound of a police siren.

  5

  SARAH STOOD ON JACK’S DECK AND LOOKED AT the lights of the other houses across Laurel Canyon. Some of them had Christmas displays, chains of green, red, yellow and blue winking on and off in the night. Someone had even put up a tall Christmas tree outlined in lights about halfway up the hillside. It was a clear evening, and cold enough that Sarah needed to wear a sweater over her blouse. The stars shone thick and bright above, and car lights meandered along the canyon road way below. She could smell woodsmoke in the air.

  Standing so high up the canyon side, Sarah felt suspended in space. Behind her, the party was in full swing. People were laughing, dancing, drinking. Janis was belting out “Get It While You Can’ into the night air. But Sarah was taking a moment’s breather from the crowd.

  Her peace was soon broken. Guests came out onto the deck and stopped to tell her how much they loved the show, how “great’ she was, or how “great’ she looked, the way people did in Hollywood, as if it were the only thing in the universe that mattered.

  In return, Sarah smiled and made small talk as best she could, sipping on the same glass of rum and Coke that Jack had poured her when she arrived. The ice had melted by now, and the Coke had lost most of its fizz. Between conversations, she would glance around nervously now and then to make sure Stuart, her escape route, was still nearby.

  The sweet, acrid smell of marijuana drifted through the air. Two young actors who played uniformed cops on the show stood near the door snorting coke through a rolled-up dollar bill. Or it could have been a twenty. Apart from the numbers, American money all looked the same to Sarah. She turned away from the actors; the scene brought back too many memories, all of them bad.

  Music blasted out of Jack’s megawatt stereo system in the main room. Janis gave way to the Rolling Stones doing “Angie.” Sarah studied the lights of the houses across the canyon again and wondered if M were watching. Was she on stage tonight?

  Inside the house, people danced wildly, tossing frantic shadows over the stark white walls. Sometimes the shadows and the dancers didn’t seem to connect, as if so much wildness disconnected them the way a retina might be detached from the back of the eye. Sarah looked for Jack, hoping he would manage to get away from the throng for a minute.

  Jack Marillo was her co-star in Good Cop, Bad Cop, the biggest early-season hit the network had had for years, such a success that it was even being shown in the UK already.

  People said the main reason for the show’s success was the chemistry between Sarah’s controlled, repressed and icy blond homicide detective, Anita O’Rourke, and her spontaneous, rule-bending, bed-hopping partner Tony Lucillo, played by Jack. Why was it, Sarah wondered, that female TV cops always had names that started with an “O’ and male cops had names that ended with one?

  Sarah’s character was tough and competent, with a hint of vulnerability, an occasional hairline crack in the professional carapace. She was the one who always kept her cool when Lucillo shouted, gesticulated and went into his tantrums, but she also shed a tear or two in private after discovering the raped and murdered corpse of a twelve-year-old street kid.

  Stuart said the audience liked the characters because they kept people in suspense about whether they’d end up in the sack together. They had filmed a kiss for the Christmas special—a chaste one, but with definite possibilities—then the network would be showing reruns for a couple of weeks to keep the viewers on tenterhooks.

  Stuart also said the male viewers loved Sarah because, although she seemed a bit aloof and prim, very Brit, they just knew she was a screamer between the sheets. All that repressed passion. Strictly footprints on the ceiling.

  Sarah took all the praise with a pinch of salt, and she took Stuart’s crude comment as a compliment. That, to her, was what acting was all about. Being someone different. She was by nature shy and quiet; her shyness was a personal prison she could only escape through acting. She could only be truly alive and real on stage or in front of the cameras.

  Being reserved, Sarah didn’t like parties very much, either, but she understood the importance of attending them, especially in Hollywood. It wasn’t just a matter of being seen at the right places. Certainly that was important, as Sarah was still only an up-and-coming star, rather than a fully fledged one. But she was also relatively new to America, and she wanted to make friends; she wanted to be liked. It was especially difficult being English. People were inclined to think you were stuck-up and stand-offish just because of your accent.

  So she showed up when she was invited, mingled and said the right things. She never really made any close friends that way, but at least she collected more faces to smile at when she dined at Spago’s, which she usually tried to avoid because it was too noisy there to hear yourself think.

  Sarah turned to the sliding door and smiled to see Jack coming toward her with a bottle of beer in his hand. She liked Jack. Of all the people she’d met in Los Angeles—Stuart aside—he was the closest she had to a friend.

  Handsome in a TV star sort of way, Jack was tall and slim, not exactly muscular, but in good athletic shape, with a dark complexion and a great head of shiny black hair. Sarah liked him because he was straightforward—no games, no bullshit—full of mischief and energy, and he had a sense of humor. Jack could act, too, not like some of the people in the show, who had walked right out of toothpaste commercials and used-car lots.

  Sometimes they went out together to restaurants, plays and concerts. There had been one or two media attempts at rumors of romance, of course, but even the greenest of entertainment reporters hadn’t been able to maintain that fiction for long, reverting instead to the cliché of the beautiful star’s lonely life, her Garbo-esque love of solitude and privacy.

  Sarah knew that Jack was gay, and that the one marriage he had tried, to appear hetero, had been a dismal failure. If the gossip columnists also knew, they weren’t saying anything. Hollywood could be very funny about things like that, even today.

  “Playing wallflower again?” Jack asked, standing next to her. They turned to face the canyon and he draped his arm over her shoulder in a brotherly fashion. The solid wooden fence they leaned against was all that stood between the two of them and a long plunge into the dark.

  “Oh, shut up, Jack,” Sarah said, thumping his arm. “You’re such a party animal, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

  Jack feigned a frown. “Not for much longer. In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s my birthday. I’m getting old.”

  “Thirty-seven’s not old.”

  “Easy to say that when you’re only thirty-four.”

  “How did you know that?”

  Jack winked. “Same way I know your real name’s Sally Bolton. No problem if you flirt a bit with one of the secretaries.”

  “Swine.” Sarah nudged him in the ribs, but a chill went through her when he mentioned knowing her real name.

  “Oh, I love it w
hen you talk dirty to me,” Jack joked. “Especially with that plummy London accent.”

  “Plummy?” Sarah countered, switching to the broad Yorkshire she’d lost after years playing other people, other voices. “Ee bah gum, lad, tha mun’t call us plummy.”

  Jack laughed.

  “Is that true?” Sarah asked him. “About the secretary?”

  “No. You told me yourself in the fall. Don’t you remember?”

  “So I did. It’s just . . .”

  “What is it? Is something wrong?”

  Sarah shrugged. “No. Well, not really.”

  He took his arm away, grasped her shoulders and turned her to face him. “Come on, Sarah,” he said in his TV voice. “It’s me, Tony Lucillo, your partner.”

  Sarah slipped out of his grasp and turned to face the canyon. “Oh, it’s nothing,” she said. “It was just you saying how easy it was to find out things about me. You know, personal details. I got some weird letters, that’s all.” She turned to face him and touched his arm. “Please don’t say anything. I’d hate it if everyone knew about them.” The music stopped. Sarah heard police sirens in the distance.

  “We all get weird letters. I got one from my ex-wife’s lawyer just the other day. She wants more money. Stop being so goddamn British. What was it, threatening, dirty?”

  “Neither, really. But . . . well, a bit of both, maybe.” Sarah turned back to the canyon and told him about it.

  “Ooh,” said a voice behind them when she’d finished. “That is creepy.” Sarah and Jack turned around and saw Lisa Curtis. Lisa looked as gorgeous as ever in a low-cut, strapless black dress, which contrasted with her creamy skin, and her thick, glossy chestnut hair falling in extravagant curls and waves over her shoulders. “Sorry,” she said, “but I couldn’t help overhearing.”

  “Oh, it’s you, Lisa,” Sarah said. “That’s all right. Just don’t go broadcasting it around, okay? I could do without the attention. It’s nothing really.”

  Lisa, who played the police dispatcher in the show, pointed to her impressive chest. “Moi? Broadcast? But I’m the soul of discretion, Sarah, you ought to know that.”