Her drive to serve. It made him feel self-centered and humble. Compared to how everyone else tried to pump up his ego and woo him, while groping for a piece of him, humility was a novel sensation.
Was that how it happened?
Gradually, the odd dinner or shared coffee or movie night in front of his second new TV became weekly affairs. Sometimes more than weekly. They would vent their grievances, doing it more and more in Spanish.
There were running jokes about her ability and determination to take care of herself, thank you very much, and his Vistarian need to do it for her. Jokes about the length women fans would go to attach themselves to him. Jokes about the hyper-exclusive atmosphere of A-List Hollywood. Jokes about cops being the last bastions of male chauvinism.
Jokes about her shitty Spanish, which he was straightening out into smoother Spanish every week.
They were friends right down to the core and they helped each other stay sane in their respective careers. The mutual help let them keep meeting. Without it, neither of them would have been comfortable.
When did the two-way-benefit turn into simply an excuse? He didn’t know. He couldn’t tell. It had happened while he was busy making movie after movie and Parris battled with Internal Affairs and Human Resources for promotions and pay raises that were her due. It happened while they both concentrated over physical fitness and strength—Adán for his active roles and Parris for her work. They would trade routines and diet tips, both obsessed with muscle gain. That was another source of jokes—the way men would gain muscle just looking at a weight, while Parris had to fight for every ounce.
The relationship shifted while neither of them were looking and they should have been. They should never have relaxed their guard.
By the time the thing happened on the boat, it was way too late.
* * * * *
Adán recalled the boat and what had happened there. He realized he was pressing his fingertip against the pendant, under his shirt.
Parris hadn’t lived in L.A. since that day. She had better things to do.
So did he, now.
Adán stirred and picked up the phone again. Ariella was on speed dial. As usual, he got her voicemail which he had been counting on. He couldn’t say it to her directly.
When the greeting message finished, he said, “I’ve been thinking, Ariella. I’m sorry, but I can’t take the role. I’ll be out of the country for a few weeks, maybe. I don’t know how long. Tell Ridley Scott thanks, but there’s something more important I have to do.”
He made himself shut up and disconnect. He went out to the pool to swim and wait for the headache and the shivering to pass.
Chapter Four
Ariella didn’t call back, which didn’t surprise Adán. She wasn’t the type of agent who tried to inveigle her clients into roles they didn’t want. At least, she wasn’t with him. They’d be working together too long. She knew he meant what he said.
Instead, the next call he got was from Olivia.
“I’m sorry about your father,” he told her. “I got the impression from Nick that you and he aren’t close, but it doesn’t matter. At least, it didn’t for me. I was devastated when my father passed, even though we hadn’t spoken to each other for years.”
“Thank you,” Olivia said, her voice soft. “I hope I don’t have to deal with that, too. For now, he’s stable and they’ll let him have visitors.”
“You’re in L.A. then?”
“I’m at the hospital. Only…”
He waited.
“The only ID I have on me is my Vistarian passport. They won’t let me in to see him unless someone vouches for me. Even though half the Secret Service knows exactly who I am.” The distress in her voice was low-key although Adán’s chest tightened in response. “They’re pissed I sold out to Vistaria,” she added. “At least, that’s how they view it.”
“You want me to tell them you’re harmless?” he asked.
“You’re the only person I know in the whole city,” Olivia said. “Given how friendly you are with the President…”
“I don’t think it’s worth much right at the moment,” Adán said. “He’s not taking my calls, either. I’ll come and see what I can do, though.”
If his name was worth anything at all, he would use that capital to help her. After all, Olivia was Vistarian now, too.
* * * * *
Olivia slumped in a lounge chair in an empty waiting room somewhere in the depths of the hospital. Secret Service and FBI had shepherded and deflected Adán until he found himself in the same room.
He gave her a hug and could feel her trembling. She had twisted her ash blonde hair into a serviceable knot on the top of her head. Her pants and silk shirt were creased from sitting. Her eyes were red.
“Who have you spoken to?” he asked.
“Only the Secret Service detail guarding the unit my father is in,” Olivia said. She nodded down the corridor.
“They’re taking a risk, blocking the daughter of the Chief of Staff from her own father,” Adán said.
Olivia’s smile was grim. “Jerry, my ex-husband, is their boss. They know exactly how much they can get away with. I’m counting on your reputation scaring them more than my ex does.” She grimaced. “It’s a stupid one-up-manship game and I don’t have the energy to play it right now.”
Adán glanced up the passage. There was nothing to see from here. They had parked her a long way from the area of interest. “Let’s find out if you’re right about me,” he said.
They walked along the passage to the t-intersection just ahead. “Did you come here straight from the airport?” Adán asked.
“I look that bad?” she asked, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
“I’m thinking about the time. It’s past dinner time here and you’re on Washington time. After you’ve seen your father, I’ll take you back to my place. You can eat and take a shower. I’m only thirty minutes from here.”
Her smile was warm. “You’re very Vistarian, aren’t you?”
Adán lifted a brow. “How so?”
“I’ve been married into the family for a microsecond and already your house is my house. I don’t want to trip you up, Adán. You must have people screaming for your attention. I wouldn’t have asked at all, except—”
“Except you don’t know anyone in the city, except family. You won’t be tripping me up.” He hesitated. “Actually, you would be doing me a favor if you stay at my house. I’m leaving for Vistaria tomorrow and would rest easier knowing someone was in the place.”
Olivia put her hand on his arm, halting him. “Adán, no! You can’t go there! Serrano would crucify you or something. He’d put your head on a pike and parade it through the city.” Her voice grew hoarse. “I know Serrano. I know him personally. He’s ruthless and crazy and he is king of his own fiefdom right now and can do whatever he wants.”
“I know—”
“No, you only think you do,” Olivia told him. “Trust me, you don’t understand crazy. Crazy doesn’t make sense. It does in stories, because everything gets explained. In the real world, though, crazy people are unpredictable.”
“Is that your way of saying I’m a dreamer who shouldn’t be tackling real life issues?”
She blinked. “No. Of course not. I’m saying no one understands Serrano. No one can predict what he will do next. That’s why he’s dangerous and if you were to fall into his hands, he would exploit who you are. He would turn you into a three-ring circus and plaster it across every data stream out there.”
“When I said I was going to Vistaria, I meant I would head for the big house in Acapulco, where the real Vistarians are camped.” He nodded down the corridor. “Shall we?”
They walked again.
“Are you sure, Adán?” Olivia asked. “It’s not pretty down there.”
“You say tackling Serrano is dangerous and warn me away, while Nick and Duardo and Daniel and Garrett…Calli and Minnie…even you in your way…you’re all f
ighting the bastard. Why can’t I?”
“You have been,” Olivia assured him. “You got Nick five minutes with the President.”
“It was nothing. I picked up a phone.”
“No one else could have done it. Even I couldn’t.”
“I want to help. Really help,” he ground out. “I want to serve my country. Why the hell can’t I do that, when every other man…every other person, can do it?”
Olivia put her hand on his arm once more. Her fingers squeezed. “I guess you’d better go, then.”
They turned the corner and came face to face with the big double doors of a surgical unit and two Secret Service agents barring the way. Neither agent twitched a muscle in their direction.
Through the glass in the doors, Adán spotted even more agents concentrated around a room on the other side of the nurses’ station.
“You wanted someone to vouch for me,” Olivia told the pair of them. “Meet Adán Caballero, gentlemen.”
Adán switched his gaze back to the two. “Are you really going to hold my cousin back from her own father?”
Silence.
“You know, if the press get to hear about this, it would look bad. Big Brother suppression and refusal of basic human rights. Imagine how it would play out,” Adán said.
The agents glanced at each other.
“What’s going on here?” came the question from behind them.
Adán looked over his shoulder.
The man standing in the passage behind them was shorter than him, with a shock of red, tightly coiled hair that made Adán recall Parris. “Doug,” he acknowledged. Doug Mulray was the Deputy Chief of Staff.
“Adán,” Doug replied. His gaze shifted to Olivia. “Olivia,” he added.
An agent opened one side of the doors. “Go right through, sir,” he told Doug.
“They won’t let me in, Doug,” Olivia said. “Even with Adán vouching for me,” she added.
Doug frowned and looked at the agents. “Don’t be stupid,” he told them. “Let her in.”
“She’s not American, sir,” one of them said.
“That’s what I mean about not being stupid. Her father is injured. Open the fucking door or give me your badge. And don’t hope I won’t follow this up the chain, either. I haven’t forgotten your boss is her ex.” Doug smiled grimly. “I’m not stupid.”
The other agent opened the other side of the door. “Go ahead, ma’am.”
Olivia squeezed Adán’s hand. “Thank you,” she murmured and hurried inside.
“I’ll wait for you,” Adán called out.
“Thank you!” she said over her shoulder.
Doug Mulray shifted the heavy satchel he was carrying over to the other shoulder. “I gotta apologize for the fuss, Adán. Times like this, things can get a little crazy.”
“It’s better the lines are tightly held, than not,” Adán said, keeping his tone polite.
Doug grimaced. “Yeah, well…” He glanced into the unit. The agent still had the door open. “I’ll give Olivia a minute or two,” he said, almost to himself.
“I guess the West Wing must be going crazy now, huh?” Adán asked, still polite.
“It’s just another day,” Doug said. “Every day there’s a crisis, it feels like. Freak accidents and boilers blowing up is far down the scale.”
Adán stared at him. “Freak accidents?” he repeated, unable to hide his amazement.
Doug’s eyes slid away from him. “Didn’t you hear the news this morning?”
“I was busy,” Adán said automatically. Busy turning down the role of the century. “That’s what it was? A boiler blowing up?”
“That’s the FBI’s initial assessment,” Doug said, his tone confident and official.
Too confident.
“A boiler doesn’t bring down a whole newly constructed wing,” Adán said. “You’re really trying to sell this?”
Doug’s face closed over. “I gotta go,” he said. “The President sends his regards. He’s glad you're safe. He saw you on the news reports.” He moved into the unit, walking fast.
The doors swung shut and the two agents took up their positions barring the doors once more.
Adán stared at Doug’s back, his red curls and the leather satchel, thinking hard. He made his way back to the empty waiting room and sat.
A boiler!
He had told Nick he thought the hospital bombing was hinky. Now he knew it was.
Hinky.
He’d learned the word from Parris. One of the few English words in exchange for all the Spanish he’d taught her.
He didn’t reach for the pendant, not here in public where someone might witness him do it. He could feel the small weight of it around his neck, though.
Just as everything else had in the last couple of days, the thought led him back to the past.
Back to her.
* * * * *
The hysteria surrounding Adán didn’t die out the way he believed it would. Every year, the fuss seemed to increase. The work flowed steadily and his bank accounts swelled, to the point where his financial advisor told him, “You need to blow cash on something expensive, Adán. Something that can be written off as a tax expense—for entertaining and pressing the flesh.”
Adán had reluctantly bought a boat, the first in a long line of boats he had bought and sold, trading up in luxury a little more each time. The first time, though, the extravagance felt wrong. It was only a few weeks after the 9-11 disaster, when Hollywood was searching for a reason for their work that didn’t feel like complete bullshit.
Parris had nailed it for him in a single off-hand observation. “Stories will be even more important now, Adán. They make sense, when nothing else does. They’re reassuring.” Then she added, almost to herself, “The world needs heroes, now.”
Adán bought a second-hand cruiser, a small one, good for gliding over to Catalina or up the coast. It was good for holding parties and meetings, too. The top floor of the boat was a lounge area. with a bar and wide, padded benches. A small master bedroom was beneath. The bathroom had a shower stall so small that bending to pick up the soap meant turning first, so his ass didn’t ram into the wall and shoot him out of the cubicle altogether.
It was a boat, though, and it was his.
As he grew more cynical about Hollywood and the true nature of fame, he had traded the cruisers for the sail boats he really wanted. They weren’t as visitor-friendly as a cruiser but by then, he didn’t care. Ariella hosted the meetings and receptions in her grand house instead.
The first cruiser had been a milestone, representing a sharp corner in his career. He invited Parris to come and inspect it, the night before the launch party.
“I’d invite you and Stuart to the party,” Adán told her as he toured her around the boat, “only I know how you hate everything Hollywood.”
“I do,” she confirmed. “I’d end up shooting someone in the butt by the end of the night, just to lighten my misery.” She grinned. “If Stuart didn’t beat me to it,” she added. Her grin seemed forced. It held an edge.
They finished the tour on the top deck. Parris missed nothing. She pointed at the champagne bottle on the bar and raised a brow.
“There’ll be a swimming pool’s tonnage of this stuff going around tomorrow night,” Adán admitted. “It won’t mean a thing to anyone. I figured it would mean something to you, though.”
She went over to the bar and pulled the champagne out of the bucket. Ice sloshed. She deftly unwound the foil and wire from the neck of the bottle. “You mean, it means something to you that I understand, while all the Glitterati won’t.” Her green eyes skewered him.
“My point exactly,” he said.
She popped the cork, not letting it fly across the room. The bottle hissed. Adán turned over two flutes. He controlled the impulse to insist he pour. She would resent him trying to take over.
Parris put the bottle back in the bucket and handed him a glass. “Congratulations, Adán,” she
said, and tapped hers to his. “I think it’s safe to say you’ve made it, now.” She looked around. “At least, on one level.” Only, she said it with a remote air, as if half her mind was on something else.
“Yes, on one level. Thank you.”
They drank.
Parris put her glass down. “I got you something, to mark the occasion.” She dug into her jean jacket pocket and pulled out a newspaper-wrapped gift about two inches square and held it out to him.
“Newspaper,” he said and laughed. “So I don’t get a big head, right? Because gift wrap and a bow is just way too pretentious.”
Parris’ grin was strained. She picked up her glass again, and leaned her back against the bar.
Adán pushed the stool beside her out of the way and put the gift and his glass on the bar. He unwrapped the little gift and smoothed out the newsprint under it, studying it.
It was a gold necklace, the chain thick and sturdy. It was the pendant—the pendants—that bore examination.
There were three squares hanging from the chain, all the same size. He separated them with his finger.
The happy mask and the sad mask that, together, symbolized drama were the first two.
The third was the same styling, only the mouth was a zig-zag and one eye looked up, while the other looked down. A man going crazy.
“It’s the damndest thing,” Parris said. “I found the two normal masks in a second-hand store, months and months ago. Didn’t think anything of them. You see ‘em everywhere in this town. Then the third one—”
“That’s me and you, reacting to Hollywood,” he said.
Her smile was dazzling. “You got it! I knew you would.” Her delight was radiant. She twisted to put her finger on the third mask. “I spotted this in a smoke shop, way across town, just last week. I couldn’t believe it. I bought it right on the spot, even though I didn’t know the other two would still be there—I thought for sure they’d be gone.”
“Only they weren’t,” Adán finished.
“It’s as if they were waiting for me to come back and get them,” she added.
Casualties of War Page 5