“Dresden?” Stanley calls out as they enter the great room. Silence. Then sounds of a struggle from upstairs. A door slamming. Scrambling.
Val appears at the top of the stairs. She’s on her hands and knees. Her pants are pulled halfway down. There’s blood on her lips and arms. A sinewy hand shoots out, grabbing her by the hair and yanking her back down the hallway.
“Val!” John yells, taking off toward the stairs.
“Stop!” Stanley cries. But there’s no way. For the first time in the night, John is acting on pure instinct. No argument, no threat, no consideration in the world could stop him from going after his wife at this moment.
He takes the stairs one at a time, unable to go full throttle because of his bound arms. Halfway up, he feels a tug at his wrists and goes reeling to one side, crashing into the railing. Stanley has gotten a hand on the plastic tie, but he’s lost his balance as well and sits sidewise on the stairs with one leg up in the air. His face is twisted in pain.
John kicks at the man’s meaty head, aiming for the stitches. One, two, three kicks and finally he connects. Stanley’s hand lets go of John and moves to his freshly bleeding wound, his big body losing its purchase and rolling down the stairs.
John scrambles to his feet and sprints to the upper landing. He looks down the hallway to his right. Light spills through the crack at the bottom of the door to the guest room.
He hurtles toward the door and, not bothering with the knob, crashes through it, destroying the latch—and nearly dislocating his shoulder—as he pitches his body into the room. Val is face down on the bed. Dresden kneels over her, holding her down by the neck, his belt and fly undone.
He turns and looks at John, eyes alight with fury.
John flies at him, leaping into the air to launch his body at Dresden.
The crack of metal on bone. Blinding pain. The room swirls. His vision goes red.
The last thing he sees is Dresden standing over him, holding the revolver aloft, ready to hit him again.
Dresden is on top of her, holding her down on the bed.
There’s no way this is happening. There’s no way this animal is going to have his way with her. It’s terrifying, humiliating, and disgusting, of course. But beyond that, it is simply unacceptable. She will not allow it.
His hand is on her arm, squeezing hard enough that there will probably be a bruise. But Val no longer struggles, no longer flails. Her muscles are taut, engaged, not giving in to him, but not wasting her energy either. This guy is out of his mind with booze and adrenaline. He’s going to make another mistake. She just has to jump on it when he does.
He’s got her on the bed now, the skin of her back rubbing hard against the duvet. His free hand reaches down to the waistband of her yoga pants. She slaps his hand away. He slaps her face, hard.
He goes for the pants again, pulls them down past her hips. He gazes intently at the valley of flesh between her hip flexors and her adductors.
Now! the familiar voice in her head tells her.
Val twists her head towards Dresden’s arm and sinks her teeth into the flesh just below his elbow. He screams. She feels his grip tighten and then release as she bites down harder, clamping down like a pit bull, determined to take a piece out of him.
“Goddamn it! You bitch! You goddamn motherfucking bitch!”
His back arches, and Val feels him rising, trying to lift himself away from her. She feels the weight of his knees releasing from the bed. She reaches out her foot and finds the inside of his calf, traces it up his inner leg, over the knee, the thigh… then bends her knee and delivers a quick, precise kick to his groin. It’s not a perfect hit, but it’s enough to send him toppling sideways off the mattress as she relaxes her jaw, letting go of his arm.
She tastes blood, feels it warm on her lips.
Dresden is on the floor, groaning, struggling to his feet.
Val scrambles off the other side of the bed and bear crawls to the door, slamming it behind her as she goes out into the hallway.
The choice presents itself once again—the stairs or the master bedroom? The circumstances have changed, but it’s just as critical… and just as impossible to know which way to go. The master bedroom could be locked. Stanley could be downstairs waiting for her.
The doorknob turns behind her.
She starts down the hallway, but her ankle gives out. She tumbles to the floor, the wounded joint screaming. It’s the sharpest pain she’s experienced since childbirth.
She puts a hand on the wall and tries to rise to her feet, but it’s no use. The ankle won’t take any weight. She drops to her hands and knees and starts crawling toward the stairs, which are now her only option. There’s no way she’ll be able to outpace this guy to the master bedroom.
She makes it to the top of the stairs, turns… and sees John.
Then the bright, kaleidoscopic sting of a tug at her scalp.
Within seconds they’re back in the bedroom, but not before she hears John’s voice, calling for her.
Why did he come back? He could have gotten away. He could have gotten help by now.
She’s thrown on the bed, face down this time, Dresden’s hand pressing into the back of her neck. She feels her pants being pulled down, hears hot, loathsome words spewing from the man’s mouth as he presses his weight against her, tastes his blood in her mouth as her face grinds into the pillow.
It must have been her imagination that she saw John and heard his voice, a hallucination born of her fear and confusion. He’s not coming to help her. No one is coming to help her. This dreadful, unimaginable, completely unacceptable thing is going to happen. And there is nothing she can do about it.
The sound of splintering wood.
The weight on top of her disappears. She looks up and sees a tangle of bodies off to the side of the bed. A hand, holding something, rises up and comes down hard against the other body’s face. The body holding the object—a revolver—rises to its full height. The arm rises up to come down with even greater force—with lethal force. And then a third body. Bigger than the other two.
It’s Stanley. Coming up behind Dresden. Raising his rifle in both hands. Striking his partner on the back of the skull with the butt of the rifle.
Dresden crumples to the floor, collapsing on top of John, both of them unconscious.
Val looks at Stanley. His chest is rising and falling, taking in heaving gulps of air through his open mouth. His cheeks are wet with sweat or tears—she can’t tell which. He stands there in apparent disbelief at what he’s done. Then his jaw closes, and he looks at Val.
“Are you okay?”
She nods. He takes a small step toward her. She looks over at Dresden and John. The revolver has fallen out of Dresden’s hand and onto the floor. She scrambles across the bed and reaches for it, but Stanley’s foot comes down on the revolver and drags it away from her. He bends down and picks it up.
Val thinks about lunging at him, trying to wrestle one of the guns from his grip, but there would be no point. She won’t even be able to stay on her feet, much less put up a fight against the big man. He’d toss her aside like a toy.
Stanley, still breathing heavily, looks at the revolver, then at the unconscious men on the floor, then back at Val. He swallows.
“I know this isn’t what you want to hear right now,” he says, “but I’m gonna need your help.” He holds up the revolver. “Do you know how to use this thing?”
RICH: What the fuck happened?
JAY: Where were you?
RICH: My sister was being a stupid bitch. I had to get her off my dick. So imagine my surprise when one of the marks shows up at my back door.
MARCUS: What?!
JAY: He came to your fucking house?
RICH: Yep.
ELLIOT: Holy shit.
RICH: No shit, holy shit. Want to tell me what he was doing there?
MARCUS: It’s all good, brah—he’s back in the house now.
ELLIOT: Everyone is accounted for.<
br />
RICH: Wow, awesome, that’s terrific. Now if someone could please tell me what the fuck he was doing outside in the first place!
JAY: We tried to get it under control, but Agent #1 was taking matters into his own hands.
RICH: His own hands?
ELLIOT: He made a call to a TV station.
RICH: Please tell me you’re shitting me.
MARCUS: I wish, brah.
RICH: Motherfucker.
JAY: Maybe we should call it.
RICH: Call it?
JAY: You know, abort.
RICH: NO. FUCKING. WAY. You fuck-tards have definitely made this a little more complicated than it needed to be, but I have put way too much into this project to stop halfway. I’m riding this thing out with or without you.
ELLIOT: We’re with you, Rich.
RICH: What the fuck did you just call me?
ELLIOT: Sorry. We’re with you, frogger13.
MARCUS: Relax, brah.
RICH: Shut the fuck up. Are you with me, frogger12?
MARCUS: Yeah, man, you know it.
RICH: Eleven?
JAY: …
RICH: Eleven?
JAY: (sigh) Yeah, sure.
RICH: “Yeah, sure,” what?
JAY: Yeah, sure, I’m with you, frogger13.
RICH: Okay. Thank you. Now, I’m gonna try to establish communication. Do you know if Agent #1 still has his phone?
ELLIOT: I believe it’s in the pocket of his coat… which is there on the floor.
RICH: Wait a second… why aren’t those two moving?
MARCUS: Husband came in and saw Agent #1 trying to get up on his lady, and he jumped at him like a panther, man, legit. But Agent #1 cold cocked the husband, like thwop! Down! And he was about to ring his bell again when Agent #2 came in and like THUNK!, knocked him out with the butt of his rifle.
RICH: Jesus.
ELLIOT: It looks as if Agent #2 has another idea now.
RICH: What’s he doing?
ELLIOT: Well, he was fiddling with Agent #1’s gun, and if I’m not mistaken he’s now giving it to the wife.
MARCUS: No way…
RICH: Fucking Christ.
MARCUS: That is some baller shit right there.
RICH: What the fuck are you talking about, frogger12?
MARCUS: You know, betrayals, shifting allegiances… that’s some drama, dude. That’s what we’re here for.
RICH: I am not here to watch this retarded gorilla mess up my fucking plan.
MARCUS: Relax, brah, it’s just entertainment, right?
ELLIOT: How do you recommend we proceed?
RICH: We need to reestablish contact with Agent #1.
MARCUS: Dude’s out like a light.
RICH: Well, maybe the sound will wake him up. We’ll wait for the big fucker to leave the room, and then we’ll make the call.
ELLIOT: But if it doesn’t wake him up, she’ll hear it. She could take the phone and call for help.
MARCUS: Or shoot the dude and take the phone from him.
RICH: That would certainly make for some drama, wouldn’t it, frogger12?
MARCUS: Whoa, brah, I wasn’t talking about—
RICH: Just what did you think you were signing up for then? What did any of you think you were signing up for when you accepted my invitation to join this operation? (Pause.) Now we’re making this phone call. It’s a risk, but it’s one we’ve got to take.
MARCUS: (sigh) All right.
RICH: Frogger11, you’ve been very quiet.
JAY: I’m just taking it all in.
RICH: I’m sure I don’t have to point this out, but that is what your mother said to me last Friday.
JAY: No. You don’t have to point it out.
ELLIOT: What are you going to tell them, frogger13?
RICH: I’ll figure that out. Get ready to patch me through.
MARCUS: Roger.
ELLIOT: Roger.
JAY: … Roger.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: A Shot in the Dark
The sun sets over the Pacific, singeing the distant waves out past Santa Monica, turning the horizon technicolor. The view makes Cedric think of junk food. Cheetos. Doritos. Fruit loops. The stuff he used to gorge himself on when he was starting out in L.A., sharing a studio apartment in North Hollywood with a girlfriend who paid the rent—and kept them in good nose candy—by dancing at a not-too-shabby place on the strip (before moving deeper into the valley and trying her hand, along with other body parts, at hardcore porn).
Back then he could snack with impunity. Back then—before the heart attacks and the hypertension, the diabetic tendencies, the weight gain and the eye-popping cholesterol readings—he could eat in color. He could binge. He could, to get goddamn Shakespearean about it, give his gluttonous streak the reins. He could feed himself with abandon, like an animal.
Nothing is the same anymore.
He feels the hooker’s hand on his crotch, then her hair and her breath on the side of his neck.
“You want me to stay?” she says.
“No, that’s all right.” His hands tighten around the railing of the balcony. “There’s an envelope on the dresser.”
She kisses his neck, continuing to move her hand up and down. “You sure? I figured you’d want to go at least two rounds.”
“I’m a little tired is all. Don’t worry, I still paid you for the full time.”
“I’m not worried about the money. I just want to make sure you’re happy. How about I take care of you right here,” she whispers. “You can keep enjoying the view.” Her tongue laps at his ear lobe.
“I’m fine. Really. Thanks.”
The tongue stops. And then the hand. She pulls away from him and starts back toward the sliding glass doors. He could go another round, he supposes, but what would be the point? It doesn’t matter what kind of oral acrobatics she performs—all he’ll be thinking about is artificial cheese dusted over puffs of crunchy pastry, little starch bombs infused with partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. No sex act in the world is gonna get his mind off the one thing he wants right now and can’t have.
He doesn’t even bother to glance at her bare ass as she sashays back into the bedroom. He keeps looking out over the canyon and to the coast beyond, bewildered and a bit forlorn about what his life has become.
This city, man. Where else in the world could an oily faced kid from Nowhere, North Dakota, show up with a suitcase and two hundred bucks and end up—after two decades of truly unbelievable diagonal leaps—hosting his own tabloid show on one of the more popular national cable stations? Where else could a loser like him become part-owner in a bistro on Laurel Canyon Boulevard? Live in a glass-walled house in the Hills with a view of the goddamn Pacific Ocean?
Those East-Coast faggots he sometimes has to teleconference with can rag on L.A. all they want—New York’s got nothing on this place when it comes to opportunity. And Chicago? Atlanta? Austin? Forget about it.
It comes at a price, though. Opportunity cost, you might call it. It’s been weighing on him more and more, especially on nights like this, when the vertigo of living in a city with no clear center of gravity sets in. The dark thoughts collect in his brain like the clouds of smog congealing over Hollywood. On nights like this, an awareness of the amazing shallowness of his existence sweeps over him, threatening to wash away the patina of success and prestige that he presents to the world—and to himself.
The one time in the past twenty years his folks came out to visit, his dad spent the whole visit with his lips half-parted, his eyes squinting slightly, saying nothing as he looked around at the house—at the whole city, for that matter—as if none of it were real. Cedric had taken it at the time as a sign that he had made it. His mildly imperious Midwestern father was at a loss for words in the face of his son’s material success. It occurred to him only later that the man had been silent because, in all of this luxury and sheen, all this opulent comfort, he couldn’t make out anything that resembled a real life.
More and more—on nights like this, alone even when he’s paid for company—Cedric has been realizing that the old man was right. Twenty minutes after the girl is gone, he’ll find himself at the kitchen table with the Scotch his doctor told him to empty down the drain, contemplating a bottle of painkillers as he gradually goes misty, then starry-eyed, then blank. He can see it coming before the girl is even dressed.
At least it’s better than those desperate nights of old, when he would take drunken joy rides down Mulholland, slaloming around the other drivers, reaching for that next burst of adrenaline—anything to drive away the fear and loathing—inviting an absolute cliché of an ending to his ignoble adventures in Hollywood.
The landline rings as the girl is lacing up her boots on the edge of the bed. He goes over to his desk and looks. It’s a (207) number—Maine.
Who the fuck could this be? No one Cedric doesn’t know personally has his home number. And he’s not disappointed to say that he doesn’t know anyone from the backwater Northeastern wasteland that is the state of Maine. (“Saltwater West Virginia” some of the guys back at U-Penn had called it. Then again, they’d also called him “North DaQuota,” a reference to his unlikely acceptance into the prestigious East-Coast school).
He almost doesn’t bother to answer. It’s probably just a telemarketer, some bullshit robo-call. But on a night like this, staring down the void—what’s he got to lose?
He picks up the receiver. “Yeah?”
“Cedric Powers?” says the voice on the other end, young sounding and eager, but controlled.
“Who is this?”
“My name is Sheldon Merriwether. I work for a news program in Central Maine. Is this Cedric Powers?”
“How did you get this number?”
“A friend of mine worked for you briefly a few years ago. Byron Lefkowitz?”
Byron’s name is almost enough to make him hang up. But he’s intrigued, and anyway it’s a distraction from the existential angst awaiting him in the yawning quiet of the Los Angeles night. “You friends with that little shit bag?”
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