The stuntman poured himself another drink, then filled her glass as well. “I’ll tell you one thing, Mrs. Hardin. There’s no way in hell I’m going over and watch the old bastard pull the plug on himself.”
“I know what you mean,” Evelyn said, watching the stuntman pour himself another drink. He seemed slightly crazy but somehow in control.
“Of course I’d sign on for him again even though he fired me day before last. You understand he likes to fire me. Fired me one time in North Dakota and once in Hong Kong. I get a load on and bust up something or somebody and he fires me. But he takes me back. I think he has a weakness for half-breeds.”
“I’m a breed,” Evelyn said. “And I think he has a weakness for me, but I don’t know if I want to go back.”
“Oh, hell, of course you’re going back,” he said impatiently. “You can’t leave a man like Wes Hardin when he’s down.”
“It seems as good a time as any,” Evelyn said, wondering if she meant it.
“You’re Canadian?” he asked.
She nodded.
“I suppose you married him to get out of town. Hell, I don’t blame you. I know what Canada is like. I broke a foot up in Calgary in a car stunt.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“See it through anyway. Who cares where anyone is from or what it was like? I’m part French and Moroccan and it’s never done a damn thing for me.”
His face was flushed from the booze and confessions of mixed blood, and Evelyn found him violently handsome. He sat there pouting, his lower lip feminine and full, his eyes staring past her, focused on some inner turbulence. She knew she was getting sloppy, but it was as if she had to run her own parallel course to Wesley’s, to step across her own boundaries while he was breaking up his.
“In some secret way I know you more than I know Wes,” she lied.
“Because we’re both breeds?”
“Because neither of us makes plans and Wes has to have a plan or he’ll die.”
“Maybe that’s why he’s so shaky. He’s run out of plans.”
“Maybe.”
“He has more fear than we do. You can smell it on him.”
“You have fear and I can smell it on you.”
He looked at her with great care. “What am I afraid of?”
“Of me, for one thing,” she said softly, smiling at him.
He didn’t answer. Behind him, the woman in the Japanese housecoat changed channels.
“I’m not afraid of you,” he said finally. “I’m afraid of Wes.”
“Maybe it’s time you broke that one.”
She stood up, dizzy from the booze and the smoke and the dull knowledge that she had gone too far with him.
“I’m going for a ride,” she said. “I love my husband.”
“I don’t know about love,” he said, wanting to hurt her.
She leaned on the table looking down at him and then abruptly left.
He stood up as though drugged and followed her out the door where she stumbled over a twisted pile of bailing wire.
Reaching out to steady her, his hand brushed across her breast. She gasped, leaning against him, and it was then that he knew just what it was she wanted done with her.
They walked silently across the field and down the back end of the street, past the false plywood fronts of the town. Suddenly she was unable to go on. Shouts and trumpet blast washed over them from the saloon and then receded. They were standing next to the jail in the shadows of an overhead balcony. She let him pull her to him, his mouth finding hers in a surprisingly gentle and tentative kiss and then she abruptly turned and walked into the jail.
The ground floor was full of lighting equipment and she picked her way through piles of cables and generators and up a narrow flight of stairs to the second floor, his footsteps following behind. Moonlight fell through a barred window outlining a sheriff’s office with a rolltop desk and a rifle case. Two cells, their doors open, occupied the rear. She went directly into one of the cells, bare except for a single cot.
“I’ve led you to jail,” she said, turning to him.
“As long as you don’t leave me here.” His hands unbuckled his pants.
“But I am going to leave you here,” she said, taking off her clothes.
“Shut up,” he said, reaching for her ass.
IN THE saloon, a drunken and confused Pancho Villa sat on a chair elevated by two aluminum camera cases, giving it the temporary stature of a throne. Beneath him drifted a bored and mostly stoned crowd of whores, actors, and mariachi players held together by the prevailing rumor that Wesley Hardin was in the process of flipping out and that they might be witnesses to a legendary event sure to be reported in Rolling Stone, Time, and Cahiers du Cinéma. This rumor was further reinforced by the appearance of the female star, who showed up full of righteous abuse about Wesley’s deliberately sabotaging her career. In an unnaturally loud voice contracted from the still-rising effects of the pharmaceutical coke, Wesley had called her a self-indulgent cunt and a worthless actress who further and forevermore was living proof that the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset was right when he said the twentieth century would see the final dominance of mediocrity over intelligence. Stunned and speechless by this reduction, the female star had returned to her hotel, where she had booked herself on the first flight to L.A.
Returning to the end of the bar, Wesley sat alone brooding about just what it was he had intended to do with this night. The rest of the saloon waited for him with awkward apprehension, no longer trying to pretend they were at a party or some kind of spontaneous cinéma vérité exploration by an aging master of the Western genre.
“We’ll do the fucking mountain man scene,” Wesley said as if startled by sudden illumination.
The mountain men were summoned and instructed to ask Pancho Villa how they could get laid now that they were his guests in Mexico. As Hank and Scarface approached the throne where Pancho Villa had passed out, the saloon door swung open and the producer swept in, followed by a newly arrived studio executive from L.A. in jeans and white Peruvian peasant’s shirt. He was obviously thrilled to be on the front of a real crisis on a real set. Wesley ignored them, instructing the cameraman to keep on shooting.
Hank pulled on Pancho Villa’s foot: “Pancho, now that we have fought and died for you, we would like to ask you a favor.”
Pancho Villa, startled and confused, looked down at the kneeling mountain man: “Favor? . . . I don’t need no favor. I have an occupation . . . ask him.”
He pointed to Wesley, who explained his role to him: “You are Pancho Villa. El jefe. You must give the orders and make the decisions because within you lies the spirit of the people, for better or for worse. Not those profane assholes from Mexico City.”
“Be like Anthony Quinn,” Pancho Villa ordered. “Never say die, and ask for dollars, not pesos.”
Wesley pointed to the producer: “The money man over here will give you one thousand dollars American.”
Elated, Pancho Villa grabbed one of the whores and kissed her. “Then I take this puta and give you all the other putas. Viva México!”
A few cheers rang out from the crowd and the band swung into an enthusiastic version of “La Cucaracha.” Wesley pointed at the cameraman to pan around the room to include the producer and the studio executive.
“Jesus Christ, Wes,” said the producer. “This has gone far enough.”
Wesley stood on a chair so that he was equal in height to the enthroned Pancho Villa. “These two men represent everything that’s fucked up with this process,” he said to a suddenly self-conscious Pancho Villa, who was looking for an easy way to get the whore down from his lap.
The drunken voice of the prop man sang out from behind the bar: “Hang the cocksuckers . . . burn ’em in phony receipts. . . .”
The producer made a desperate move to grab the camera, but the cameraman, an ex-professional soccer player, eluded him easily, planting a quick kick to his groin while continu
ing to shoot.
The studio executive took this moment to step forward. “I plead with you, Mr. Hardin, to stop all of this. It’s very upsetting to see a man of your legendary reputation lose all control in this manner.”
“I am in total control,” Wesley said calmly.
“Fire the son of a bitch,” the producer gasped, kneeling on all fours.
The studio executive continued, raising his voice to include the entire saloon, “I must add that I represent the studio on this matter and the studio’s position is that if this room isn’t emptied in five minutes we will close the entire production.”
The message communicated itself to the crowd, which grew suddenly subdued, all except the band, which misunderstood the silence and launched into “La Cucaracha” again.
“Keep on shooting, Sidney,” Wesley said to the cameraman, who was in a nothing-left-to-lose mood.
“Put down that camera,” the studio executive said.
“Why don’t you tell him he’ll never work again,” Wesley said.
“All right. Put down that camera or you’ll never work again.”
“Keep shooting,” Wesley said, as the crowd circled around them. “This is my set.”
“Not any more, Mr. Hardin,” the studio executive said, conscious that this historic moment was being filmed. “I am relieving you of that responsibility.”
Wesley had almost reached the calm that he was seeking, needing only one more shock to cut him loose altogether. He took the .38 out of his belt and raised it, aiming toward the bottle on the bar that held the live tarantula. At that moment he saw Evelyn standing just inside the door, regarding him soberly. He lowered the .38, motioning for Sidney to hold the camera on her reaction. Then he fired, shattering the glass.
As one body, the crowd rushed out the door. All except for the studio executive, who walked over to the tarantula and squashed it with the heel of a custom-made English boot. “That’s it,” he said directly into the camera, managing to look both official and compassionate. “That’s the whole ball of wax.” Then he turned and left the saloon, nodding politely to Evelyn as he went through the swinging doors.
Shaken and exhausted, Wesley sat down at a table, Evelyn coming over to him and absently rubbing the back of his neck.
“Give me a two shot uptight and we’ll call it a day,” Wesley said to Sidney and the sound man, who were the only other people left in the saloon. “Assemble the footage in L.A. and consider yourself both on the payroll. Perhaps we’ll continue this little exercise later on.”
Having run out of all other options, Sidney raised the camera and focused on Wesley as he pulled Evelyn onto his lap. She put a hand up to block the lens but Wesley gently lowered it. “How would you feel about driving to Mazatlán tonight?” he asked. “We’ll lie on the beach for a few weeks and see where we go from there.”
“I would like that,” she said, kissing him on the mouth.
CUT TO A.D. and Walker rolling down the mountains in a secondhand Dodge van, their first stop a national park campsite a mile off the main road. They were on arid tableland, around them twisted formations of rock, a maze of natural arches and bridges bathed in a hard crimson and yellow evening light. They made a rough camp with the equipment and supplies they had bought after leaving Caleb’s. A.D. wasn’t going to pull his weight, that was obvious as he sat in front of the small fire Walker had made and played a few desultory notes on a pocket harmonica. Walker didn’t mind, preferring to handle the chores himself, peeling potatoes and frying two steaks over the fire. After they had finished eating, Walker decided to tell A.D. what was on his mind.
“I’m ready to go my own way,” he said. “You can have the van and I’ll split at the next town where there’s a bus station.”
“No way, José,” A.D. said. “You can’t quit on me like some out-of-town roadie.”
“I’m not up to doing the script.”
“Who cares what you’re not up to doing? If you sign for pay you got to play. I want to grab some of the movie pie. Anyway, you owe me for my eye. If it wasn’t for you I’d be making my normal moves.”
Walker didn’t reply. Picking up the paper plates, he threw the steak bones into the darkness and the plates on the fire.
A.D. reached into his duffel bag and took out a bottle of Johnny Walker and took a long pull. “My days as a backup man are over. I been a backup man all my life, one way or the other. No way, José.”
“Who is this José?” Walker asked.
The question infuriated A.D. “What are you, some kind of off-the-curb arrangement you don’t know the way people speak any more? They must have rung your bell over there. Who is José? José is you, baby, and me and all the fucking people. José is José. What went down over there that you lost it so bad? You must have booked yourself into some kind of religious act. The street is where it’s at now and how to get off it. Dash for cash.”
Walker stood up and moved off toward the looming sentinels of rock.
“A deal like you only comes along once,” A.D. yelled after him. “I’m staying with you rain or shine.”
Walker turned back to him. “It’ll never sell.”
“Your old man will change that,” A.D. said. “Your old man is an all-world pro who’s done over thirty pictures and he knows how to move something off the lot.”
“He has other problems,” Walker said, turning away again toward the darkness.
A.D. reached into his duffel bag, producing a semi-automatic .22 pistol and a pocket tape recorder. “Sing me your song, mother fucker, or I’ll blow a hole into you.”
For the first time in days, perhaps weeks, Walker smiled. Then he walked off into the darkness and A.D. let him go. But A.D. wasn’t going to give up. He was going to mount one all-or-nothing assault. To do this he needed help in the form of a stash of morphine and speed he had stolen from the hospital and hidden in the back of the van. He built up the fire and made himself a goofball. Turning on the radio in the van as high as it would go, he found a C & W station and played along with Merle Haggard and Hank Snow on his harmonica. He sprinkled a little of the morphine into the fire as a kind of offering and settled back, waiting for the necessary focus to crystallize inside him. Then he searched for Walker.
“Walker? Walker?” A.D. yelled but there was no answer. He stumbled, falling to his knees, managing at the last minute to save the tape recorder. He turned it on: “I appreciate your intentions,” Walker’s voice said on tape. “They’re better than mine because they mean to communicate whereas I’m pulled into myself and stuck in the swamp of my own experience. . . .”
He turned the tape recorder off.
Walker sat barely fifty feet away hidden behind a huge boulder. He listened to the distant music on the radio and said nothing. But something did, in fact, feel lighter, as if a burden had been lifted inside him, a clenched fist that had somehow relaxed. He was inclined to let out the story, or a variation on the story, since there seemed to be so much pressure toward that end and since he had, in fact, helped create the situation. But he said nothing, feeling relieved that A.D. had decided to go off on his own.
“That shuts it then,” A.D. said. Standing up, he fired a few shots to finalize the deal, the bullets richocheting off the rocks.
He had gone ten steps when Walker’s voice stopped him. “You just shot me in the leg. I think it was on the rebound and it doesn’t feel too serious.”
A.D. sprinted toward Walker’s voice, moving among the jagged rocks like a crazed broken-field runner.
Walker lay sprawled on his back, his right thigh matted with blood. A.D. ripped Walker’s pants with two quick tears.
“It’s not bad,” he said, working quickly. “A flesh wound. Two bounces before it hit you. Don’t worry about nothing. I was a medic in the navy.”
He tore up his shirt into thin strips and tied them expertly around the wound. “If you’re freaked I can get you into a hospital or rob a drugstore. There’s always a way. But like I say, it’s a scra
tch.”
He drifted off, shifting down from the adrenaline and the sudden confrontation of three hundred mgs of diethylpropion hydrochloride with two healthy snorts of morphine.
“I’m going to pass on the drive,” Walker said, beginning to notice how stoned A.D. was. “Maybe you could help me to the fire.”
A.D. swayed to his feet and offered Walker a hand, and together they made their way back, Walker leaning heavily on A.D.’s shoulder. Once they fell, Walker’s head scraping against a rock and opening a gash across his forehead. A.D. ripped up what was left of his shirt and tied a loose bandanna across Walker’s head, partially blocking his vision. They moved on, toward a glow of embers where the fire had died down and where they could hear a disco beat from the radio.
“Hold your fire, we’re coming in!” A.D. yelled. “We’re behind our own lines and this is as safe as it’s going to get.” A.D. lost himself in a low maniacal giggle. “And you and I, Walker, are going to put it out on the table because neither of us has been dealing with a full deck.”
He dragged an air mattress out of the van and helped Walker to shift himself on top of it, making him comfortable with a blanket and pillow. Then he stripped the bandages off Walker’s leg and cleaned his wound with a fresh handkerchief, working away at each clot of blood as if it were a world unto itself. He topped it all off by pouring enough whiskey over the exposed area so that Walker almost lost consciousness.
“Now, now,” A.D. whispered, pouring two large lines of morphine onto a pocket mirror and producing a cut-off straw from his pocket. “Snort on this here coup de grace, old buddy.”
Walker did as he was told, content to lie back and be administered to, watching A.D. build up the fire and open a can of chicken soup to heat over the Coleman stove.
“Suppose we slip on back to what used to be,” A.D. said after he had spoon-fed Walker the chicken soup, and the morphine was taking hold as they lay on their backs pinned to the vast night sky. “I believe it was Jim and his wife, Lacey, looking for sister Clementine who had stepped off the curb in India, or was it Bali?”
Slow Fade Page 6