It seemed that no one breathed during the speech. The trees didn’t stir; the wavelets didn’t break. It took a heartbeat’s worth of silence to jump-start life again. Then fronds rustled softly and foam fizzed over rocks. The red rim of the sun lifted from the ocean, seeming to shake off water as it rose. With a last look back, a look that said goodbye not only to her would-be lover but to all the things she knew would never be, Lulu began to walk away.
She took one step, two steps. On the third step her foot found the plaster cap of beach and she crashed abruptly through it. Her posture never changed as she vanished. She plummeted downward as streamlined as a diver. She didn’t scream, didn’t whimper. She simply disappeared without complaint, as if she was grateful that the earth had swallowed her.
“Cut!” yelled Rob Stanton. Then, toward the vacant place where Lulu had last been standing, he called out, “My God, Candace, that was brilliant, stunning, perfect. Where you been keeping that intensity?”
No answer came forth from the hole in the ground. The sun kept rising, almost the whole red disk now lifted from the sea. Arc lights were switched off, cameras shifted.
The director shouted, “Come on out now, Candace. One last scene to shoot.”
There was no sound or movement from the hole.
Half a minute went by. Jake and Claire were watching Quentin Dole. Veins stood out in his neck and twin blood-red suns were rising in his glasses. He couldn’t seem to keep his feet quite still.
Rob Stanton called out for Candace once again, and when she didn’t answer he said, “Come on, no time for games.”
He started walking toward the hole. Quentin matched him stride for stride, Jake and Claire half a step behind.
But before anybody reached the ravaged plaster cap there was an apparition.
Donna was rising up through it. She wasn’t climbing; she was ascending. She rose vertically and very slowly, as arrow-straight as how she’d entered, her face serene, eyes calm, neck and shoulders only gradually emerging. Dole saw her rising and froze where he stood.
Jake, close at his side now, said, “Surprised, Quentin?”
The producer said nothing, just flicked his eyes this way and that.
“She wasn’t supposed to come out of there, was she, Quentin?”
Stammering, he said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Yes you do,” Claire put in. She was standing at the producer’s other flank, shaking a script as she spoke. “It’s right here. You wrote it yourself.”
“That?” he said dismissively. “That’s just television.” He gestured spasmodically toward Donna, whose torso was now above the level of the ground. “But this … this is …”
“This is what?” Jake said. “This is — or was supposed to be — your ultimate coup, the buzz to end all buzzes. A real death on your show. The star, no less. Who’d gotten to be a problem for you anyway. Perfect.”
Dole shook his head. He even managed a faint laugh. As was his custom when trapped, he didn’t argue, just tried a different tactic. “You’re a storyteller, Jake. You’re making up your own plot here.”
“No, it’s not my story. It’s yours. Especially that final scene. The one where they find Lulu at the bottom of a six-foot sinkhole, pierced through by an old buried stump that had been ground down sharp as a spear.”
“Television,” the producer said. “The magic of television. We break the scene, do a mock-up of the wound, some phony blood …”
“When did the hole get six feet deep?” Claire asked. “It was three when we were here.”
The question briefly flummoxed Dole. Then he said, “Three, six, what’s the difference? It’s only —”
He broke off abruptly because just then the rest of Donna rose up from the hole. Her feet, in muddy sandals, were firmly propped on two enormous hands. She stepped from them onto solid ground. Then a giant fist punched through the wafer of beach, and behind it came Ace’s head and shoulders. Almost casually the big man said, “And here’s your murder weapon.”
He tossed a shaft of casuarina, also known as ironwood for its freakish hardness, out of the hole and onto the beach, where it rolled a few inches then stopped. It was the thickness of a closet pole, maybe four feet long, and had been whittled to a vicious point.
Ace braced his hands on the edge of the hole and lifted out easily, like a swimmer from a pool, before continuing. “Was stuck in the bottom, sticking straight up. Almost got me when I climbed down. Had to work like crazy to wrestle it out. Woulda killed someone for sure.”
The sun had risen higher and was spilling orange light across the scene. The damp hole glistened. The pointed shaft of ironwood softly gleamed. For a moment no one spoke and the only sound was a very faint mechanical whine, perhaps the distant chatter of an engine.
Claire said, “You were going to film it, weren’t you, Quentin? Bring a camera over, find the body. Make television history. The final merger of real life and your show.”
Dole was shaking his head, in fact his whole body, in denial. “This is nonsense, craziness. I don’t know anything about some pointy stick. Look, nothing happened. No one got hurt. Why don’t we just forget —”
He didn’t finish the sentence because quite suddenly the faint mechanical whine had deepened into a guttural roar as a speedboat rounded a turn and rocketed toward the beach. Up on plane, the wake humping outward like a miniature tsunami, the craft split the water, vermilion spray flying from its hull. For a moment it appeared that the hurtling boat would run up onto land, but then the engines were abruptly cut and it subsided quickly, rocking as it settled. The sun was on its stern. In its cockpit a single figure was silhouetted, its exact contours blotted out by glare.
The figure raised an arm. Dull blue metal glinted and in that instant Jake knew, more quickly than by reason, who the figure was and where the gun was aimed. He didn’t speak, didn’t shout, had no thought of risk or courage, just threw himself at Donna’s legs as the bullet meant for Candace left the muzzle. They rolled together on the knobby beach and the shot found Quentin Dole instead. It hit him in the chest. For a moment he stood very still, the image of a tall blonde woman reflected in his glasses, a puzzled look twisting his thin lips, as though he was trying to rethink a scene gone wrong. Then his legs gave way and he fell, his arms stretched toward the hole in the ground, his weakly twitching hands grasping at the shoveled earth.
51.
“The way I see it,” Joey Goldman was saying, “his story was gonna be that the hole got deeper by itself. Ya know, caved in, the way real sinkholes happen or empty swimming pools cave in. Pressure down there. Happens. So it caves in and exposes the old tree trunk and there’s a horrible accident in front of plenty of witnesses. Hard to prove, hard to disprove.”
“Except,” said Ace, “we caught guys digging. Around eleven, when everyone had left. We watched from Joey’s boat. They took the fake beach off, dug some more, planted the spike, put the top back on. Then they got in this dinghy that was stashed in the mangroves and rowed away. Joey put me ashore and I hid down in the hole. Disgusting down there, lemme tell ya. Plus I almost took the spear right up my ass. Who wants more grouper? I got like a whole other batch here.”
It was evening and everyone had gathered at the compound. Placid blue light gleamed above the pool. Seagulls soared above the streetlights and palm fronds rattled softly in the breeze. The mood was almost festive but not quite, tempered by fatigue and a grudging but undeniable sympathy for the death of Quentin Dole; and for the incarcerated future of the tall and crazy blonde, who’d been arrested, without resistance and apparently with relief, the instant she stepped ashore at the Brigantine Marina; for the flash-in-the-pan hit show called Adrift, on which work was now suspended and which was nearly certain to be canceled; and even for Candace McBride, who’d been upstaged in her own death scene and was already headed back to California without a show, without a role, the media furious at her, her meteoric career suddenly a cinder. So the gathering
wasn’t boisterous, wasn’t gloating, and yet it was celebratory, a happy but muted ceremony by a very tired winning team.
Holding out his plate for more fish, Jake said, “The part I couldn’t figure was why Charlie Ponte was involved. When I saw that bodyguard working in the ditch, the one with the crazy laugh —”
“Tiny,” Ace put in. “His name is Tiny. I saw him this afternoon when I delivered the blonde’s boat to Ponte. Grabbed it before the cops did. Used it to repay a favor and say goodbye forever. Anyway, so Tiny tells me what I already figured, that it wasn’t Ponte that hired those guys to dig the hole. It was Handsome Johnny. He borrowed a crew, just like he borrowed me to steal the script.”
“But why?” Claire asked. “Why would Handsome Johnny be involved at all?”
The question hung for a moment and no one realized what a melancholy question it was. Handsome Johnny had been involved because he very briefly knew a son for whom he would do anything, and who now, abruptly, had vanished from his life as though he’d never been fathered.
Gesturing with his wineglass, Bert the Shirt offered a different theory. “Handsome Johnny was involved because he’s a worthless little pissant who likes to pretend he’s in show business.” He drank some wine then said, almost as an afterthought, “Wonder who he hired to run y’over.”
Donna said, “Excuse me?”
“Wasn’t Ace,” Bert said.
“Wouldn’t’a been the blonde,” the big man put in, “since she had a script and woulda known it wasn’t Candace in the water.”
“Right,” said Bert, “and now we find out Johnny was in cahoots with the producer guy. Bingo. Wonder who he hired to do the dirty work.”
Claire said, “You don’t think he drove the boat himself?”
“Handsome Johnny Burke?” Bert said dismissively. “Take on a risk like that? Take a chance on being the fall guy? Not for love or money.”
In this he underestimated the small-time mobster who’d fled from Hollywood only to make a second mess in Florida.
The platter of fish was passed around. More wine was poured. Donna ate and drank left-handed; her sling was back in place. Claire asked her how her arm was.
“Hurts like a bastard. But it’s worth it. I finally had a speaking part.”
Claire said, “And your performance was dazzling, amazing.”
The former stuntwoman gave a modest and lopsided shrug.
“How’d you do it?” Claire went on. “How’d you just step in like that and get so deep in Lulu’s character, the sadness, the hopelessness?”
Donna nibbled some grouper before she answered. “Little secret? In my mind I wasn’t playing Lulu. I was playing Candace. I was thinking: what’s going on inside this person, or isn’t, to make her such a bitch? That’s where it all came from.”
“Well, it worked,” Jake said.
A little cocky now, Donna said, “Hey, I told you I could do it, right? The very first night we talked. I said I could nail that fucking role if I ever got the chance. I just thought I never would. And I wouldn’t have if Bryce and Bert didn’t pull off the hijacking so well.”
Bryce beamed. “I loved that part. That part was really fun. The hedge clippers —”
“Hedge-clippers,” Ace put in. “Dustbuster. What next, a fucking Vegematic?”
Bryce said, “I’ll improvise, I’ll see what comes to hand. Maybe a gun with no bullets, like Bert.”
The old man shook his head and his huge nose lightly fanned the table. “I’ll tell ya, bullets, no bullets, it felt really lousy to have a gun in my hand again. But what can I say? Ya gotta do what ya gotta do. I’ll tell ya, though, I felt bad for the driver. Nice guy, this is what he gets. What a fucking world … But the blind man shtick, this is what I’m proud of. Pulled that off good. Couldn’t’ve done it without Nacho here. The guide dog. Played his part great. Didn’t ya, Nacho?”
He scratched the chihuahua under the chin and its drooping whiskers tickled his knuckles.
A moment later Joey said, “Nacho. You called him Nacho.”
“What of it? That’s his name, ain’t it?”
“Yeah, but —”
“I know, I know. I used to call him by the other name before. Ya think I didn’t know that? But ya gotta understand. When you’ve had something in your life for a long time, a person, a place, a dog, and then it isn’t there no more, it takes a while to get used to it, to admit that something changed. I wasn’t ready to let go before. Now I am. I’m ready to let go. Salud.”
Epilogue
Late next morning, when the call came in, Jake and Claire were still in bed. Her head was nestled in the crook of his arm, her hair brushed lightly against his cheek. They’d known each other barely a week, but as Claire had once told Jake, television sped up everything, and when they’d made love it had been with an ease and candor usually reserved for longtime partners, for people already shaped to one another in their bodies and their hearts. Being in each other’s arms had felt like sailing someplace never seen but also like sailing home again.
But now Jake’s phone was ringing, and after some seconds Claire, accustomed to being responsible, accountable, said, “Aren’t you going to pick it up?”
“Nah.”
“See who it is, at least?”
Jake looked at the screen. “It’s my agent.”
“In my world,” Claire said, “clients take their agent’s calls, if not always vice versa.”
So Jake shrugged and took the call.
Lou Mermelstein launched right in, as was his custom. “Christ, Jake,” he said, “you landed in a real shitstorm down there. The killing, the suspension of the show, it’s all over the news. You must be a wreck.”
Claire was toying with the whorls of hair along his sternum. He felt the warmth of her leg on top of his. He said, “Actually, I’m okay, I’m fine.”
As if he hadn’t really heard the answer, the agent went on. “It’s a disaster. I mean, there’s obviously no tie-in book if there’s no show to tie into. But, listen, it shouldn’t be a total loss, I just spoke to the publisher. Given the crazy circumstances, they’re willing to pay a kill fee. They offered twenty-five. I’m pushing for fifty. I said you’ve been breaking your ass on this book, it’s like half drafted already. Whaddya think?”
Jake said, “I don’t want a kill fee.”
Mermelstein said, “You don’t seem to understand. If there’s no —”
“I haven’t written a word of the stupid tie-in book and I don’t want a penny for it.”
Rather sternly the agent said, “Jake, I have a reputation to protect. I can’t say no to money.”
“Who’s saying no? I’m saying I want the whole two hundred grand. But I want it for a different book. I want to write about what really happened.”
“What really happened?” echoed Mermelstein. “What happened is that some deranged fan took a pot shot at the creator of the show. End of story. Tabloid stuff. I don’t see a book there.”
“Except that’s not what happened. Not even close.”
“No? Okay, so you tell me. What really happened? Let’s hear the pitch.”
Jake wriggled higher on his pillows, Claire slinking alongside. Trusting to the moment, he improvised a spiel about three speedboats, some Mafia, an impossible diva, a tirelessly profane stuntwoman, an old man with a dog, a suicidal brother, a tough guy with a heart of gold, a slacker with a Dustbuster, a television genius going off the rails, a compound offering peace and mayhem, and an on-location romance between a line producer and a ghostwriter.
The agent said, “Jesus Christ. Is that what really happened?”
“Pretty much,” said Jake.
“Sit tight,” the agent said. “I’ll call the publisher and get back to you.”
---
Jake’s book was called The Stuntwoman and the Diva and it caught on in a way his earlier real-name efforts never had. Within days of its release it went viral among the many fans of Adrift who were still in mourning for the loss
of their favorite show. From that core group of impassioned and in-the-know readers, the audience broadened and the momentum built, until the book became one of those must-read items on the grab-and-go tables of every airport and on the welcome page of every electronic bookstore. A hefty film deal quickly followed.
Jake and Claire were bicoastal in those giddy months, she, as lead producer, based in L.A. to deal with the studio and the actors’ agents; he, as screenwriter, flying in for meetings with the suits then returning to the haven of the compound to soak up local atmosphere and revisit the beaches and bars and islets where the story was set. But once the script had been approved and the shooting was scheduled to begin, the lovers were together nearly every night, either in Jake’s yellow cottage or at Claire’s quite grand suite at The Nest.
The movie was released the following winter, and at Claire’s insistence the world premiere was held not in New York or Los Angeles but in Key West, in a small theater on a narrow street in a miniature town where people sometimes surprised themselves and changed their lives. Reviews were generally excellent, rhapsodizing especially about the debut performance of Donna Alvarez, who appeared seemingly from nowhere to brilliantly carry off the dual roles of the stand-in and the star.
In preparation for the post-premiere party, the red carpet had been unfurled in front of Ace’s Place, a recent arrival on the downtown scene and by all accounts the place to go for seafood. Cameras rolled as the notables stepped out of their limousines and filed in. Inside, champagne flowed, toasts were proposed, cheeks were kissed and backs were patted. In the weeks that followed the nationwide opening, the usual Oscar buzz and rumors gathered steam. But Stuntwoman wasn’t destined for an Oscar. It just wasn’t that kind of movie. It didn’t push the envelope or proclaim its own importance. It was neither more nor less than a small, peculiar story that had a few good lines and some characters who might be fun to have a drink with, and that turned out as it should.
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