The Program

by Gregg Hurwitz

  “No,” Bederman said. “That’s a fine answer, too.” His hand rasped across his well-trimmed beard. “Is there anything that would make you consider leaving The Program?”

  An immediate answer—”No.”

  “Nothing at all? Use your imagination—it doesn’t have to be real. Say you found out they were planning a mass suicide or running a child-pornography ring.”

  “Or the extermination of the indigenous people of Guatemala? It’s not possible. TD’s no more capable of that than we are.”

  Will made an exasperated sound against his teeth, but Bederman just smiled at her. “Okay. Okay.” He nodded a few times thoughtfully. “If you’d never met TD—if TD and The Program didn’t even exist—and you could do exactly what you wanted to do with your life, what would that be?”

  Chewing her lip, she thought for a few minutes, shifting in her chair so she sat nearly sideways on her hip. Tears welled in her eyes, and then she said in a cracked whisper, “I don’t think I want to answer that right now.” Will said, “We’re all here for you to answer—”

  “We invited her. She came at our invitation, as much to ask us questions as to answer ours.” Bederman’s voice stayed soft, but it had taken on an edge. Will’s testiness might have met its match.

  Leah’s eyes had gone cold. “You don’t know anything about TD. He knows what works for people. You’re just too weak to want to see it.”

  In the corner Reggie’s head snapped up. He’d been so silent, Tim had almost forgotten about him. “I thought that, too,” Reggie said. “I really did.”

  Leah twisted in her chair to stare at him. Her mouth moved, but no words came out.

  Reggie leaned back, compressing his shoulders as if trying to melt into the wall. “That’s right—I’m the one lucky bastard who made it out. So I’ll put it to you: If you were the enlightened one, would you act how he does? Break people down? Take their money? Have virgins rouse him in the morning with hand jobs?”

  Emma sagged back in her chair. Will tensed. “Is that true? While we were desperately looking for you, you were off at a ranch jerking off some false messiah?” Emma moaned, and Will laid a protective hand on her shoulder. Leah looked away. “Jesus,” he continued, “did you even think about how worried we—”

  “No, I didn’t think about you. Either of you. I thought about myself and what I wanted for once.” Leah looked squarely at her mother. “I don’t have to take on your weaknesses.”

  “Take on our weaknesses?” Will was apoplectic. “You sound like a machine. What you’re doing up there, Leah, has got nothing to do with being strong. It’s laziness. You’re too lazy to face the real world.”

  “Hey, Pops,” Reggie said, “when’s the last time you hauled your ass up at six and worked a twenty-hour day?”

  “You evidently know very little about film production. I’ve done it plenty. And it’s a bit more stressful than watching the fish tank at a roadside fuckshack. What goes on at that ‘ranch’ is not work. It’s immaturity.”

  “Don’t attack him,” Leah said.

  Bederman started to object as well, but Emma cut him off, all gentle reason and apologetic eyes. “You’ve always had poor judgment, Leah.” Leah blew out a shaky breath. “It’s just like he warned me.”

  Will’s face was twisted with disgust. “What does that mean? What did the Teacher tell you?”

  Leah bent her slender neck, studying the carpet. “That you’d insult me and my practices. That you’d rant, not listen.”

  Will sputtered for a moment before finding words. “You leave us no choice. You spout recorded nonsense that can’t be listened to. There’s no reasoning with you.”

  “Well, how about you, Will? You have your head in a bottle half the day and the other half it’s up Colin Farrell’s agent’s ass—is that living in the real world like a mature person?” Leah turned to Emma, who was drawn back in her chair, hand clasped to the silk scarf knotted at her throat. “And you’re gonna teach me about judgment? St. Ursula has nothing on you in the martyr department. People don’t even exist to you— they’re just walking potentials for inconvenience.”

  Will withdrew a cell phone from his pocket and punched one button at length. His sweaty face was trembling. “I’m not going to sit here and be judged. It wasn’t easy being your parent. You can pick at us all you want, but you’re the one who made a foolish, dangerous decision. What you’re doing is stupid, Leah. Everyone in this room knows I’m right. We just have to pretend to indulge you so—”

  “Don’t you dare presume to state my position,” Bederman said.

  Tim rose toward the door, eyes on Will, the cell phone in his lap. “What was that?”

  The knob jiggled, and Rooch and Doug shouldered in. Tim swept Leah behind him. Bederman and Will were yelling at each other. Emma leaked tears, kneading her slender white forearm against her belly with a freckled hand. Shoving himself back into the corner, Reggie bent his arms over his head like a kid in a duck-and-cover drill.

  “Enough of this nonsense, Leah,” Will said. “The car’s waiting.” Leah clung to Tim’s back. “You swore. You swore you wouldn’t let them.”

  Dray arrived, winded from the brief sprint across the parking lot, but Rooch put an arm across the doorway, blocking her entry. Doug tugged up his shirt like a dealer punk, showing off the handle of the big-dick .44 Magnum at his waist—no respect for the weapon. Neither Tim nor Dray was armed.

  “Hey, now,” Will said nervously. He raised a placating hand to Doug. “Hey, now.”

  Bederman backed away until he bumped against a wall. Through his shirt Tim felt the heat of Leah’s face pressed to his shoulder blade. “Will,” Emma said in a hoarse, outraged whisper. “We never—”

  “You don’t want to do this,” Tim said. “You’re committing an armed kidnapping and assaulting a sheriff’s deputy and a federal officer.”

  “You’re not a federal officer,” Will said, “since last night.” He gestured at Doug to lower his shirt and looked at his daughter. “We’re trying to do what’s best for you. We’re trying to protect you.”

  “You’ll go down for this,” Dray said.

  “You call your contacts, Mrs. Rackley, I’ll call mine.” Will turned back to Leah. “We’re not wasting any more time. You’ve made your point. We can work it out at home. Let’s go.”

  Leah stayed put.

  Reggie stood up. “Look at me. Look at me.” Will finally acknowledged him. Reggie knocked his chest with his fingers. “You want her to end up watching the fish tank at a roadside fuckshack? Just keep it up.” Will’s tough façade wavered. “We can’t have her go back to that place.” He pivoted back to Doug. “Take her, and let’s go.”

  Doug worked his gum nervously. Though, like Rooch, he outweighed Tim by at least fifty pounds, he was no longer exuding confidence.

  “Let me make something clear,” Tim said. “If you make so much as a move toward her, I’ll break your arm.”

  Rooch held his ground at the door. Doug pulled the revolver from his waistband, keeping it angled limply at the carpet.

  Emma let out a strangled little gasp.

  “Doug,” Will said. “No need to—”

  Tim’s voice remained calm, his hands spread slightly before his chest, ready. “Never draw a weapon unless you’re prepared to use it.”

  Doug’s wide jaw bounced as he clicked his teeth. “What makes you think—”

  Tim darted across the tight circle of chairs. The edge of his right hand struck the top of the rising barrel, fingers curling near the base of the hammer and locking the cylinder. He twisted down and away, his other hand striking Doug’s hyperextended elbow, which broke with a single sharp pop.

  Doug yowled, his torso diving to the floor. Tim stepped over the distorted arm before Doug hit carpet, straining the now-limp limb at the socket, the grotesque bend of the forearm permitting Tim to aim the double-clutched revolver directly at Rooch’s head.

  Doug’s shoulder, smashed across his face, m
uffled his groans.

  Rooch’s forehead had compressed into a mass of wrinkles.

  “Release,” Tim said.

  Doug writhed on the carpet. “I... can’t.”

  Tim eased the arm back a few degrees, and the fingers popped open on their own. He snapped the gun wheel free and thumbed it into a spin, letting the bullets drop one by one into his palm. He pocketed the empty gun and said, without removing his eyes from Rooch’s, “Dray, come on in.”

  Rooch moved out of her way, and she stepped through the door and over Doug’s body.

  “Leah, you’re going to step back and sit on the bed now,” Tim said. “Go on.”

  Wiping her nose, Leah moved over and sat.

  Tim grasped Doug beneath the arms and hoisted him to his feet. “Rooch is going to drive you to the Brotman Medical Center to have your arm set.”

  Doug swayed a bit. “O-okay.”

  Tim gave him a little shove toward Rooch, who tucked his bull neck beneath Doug’s functional arm and helped him out. Tim closed the door and stood for a moment, holding the knob. Finally he advanced on Will, who shrank back against the wall. Tim brought his face within inches of Will’s and said, “I would advise strongly against your considering another stunt like that.”

  Bederman glared at Will, clearly too disgusted to speak.

  Her makeup staining her bleak face, Emma headed out. Will cast a defeated, heartbroken glance at Leah. “That’s fine. You want to ruin the rest of your life, you have my blessing. Go ahead.”

  He paused at the door. A slight movement turned his profile so it pointed at Leah, even if his eyes did not.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he said, and then he walked out.

  Reggie lingered alone in the parking lot as the others left, scratching his neck and walking in tight circles. Tim paused pulling out of his parking space, watching Reggie through the window. He killed the engine, glanced at Dray and Leah. “Hold on a sec.”

  He headed over to Reggie, but Bederman stepped out of his car and got there first. Tim lingered back a few steps.

  “May I walk you to your room?” Bederman asked.

  Reggie exhaled deeply, then nodded like a little kid.

  They walked down the corridor together, Bederman tapping Reggie on the shoulder when he walked past his own door.

  Reggie turned the key and shoved.

  Blinking curiously, Bederman beheld the impressive condition of the room. “Okay, okay.” He made a ticking noise with his tongue. “Are you happy living here?”

  “Yeah. Thrilled.”

  They stood side by side, regarding the room like a swamp they were considering plunging into. Tim watched quietly, not wanting to interfere.

  Reggie kicked the toe of his shoe into the ground. “It’s like everything else. Just so fucking daunting.” They stood outside the threshold, looking in. “I can’t do it anymore. I can’t go in there.”

  “Maybe fifteen minutes,” Bederman said. “Maybe fifteen minutes cleaning up a day isn’t daunting.”

  Reggie chewed his lip, mulling it over.

  Bederman waited. And waited.

  Finally Reggie said, “Maybe it’s not.”

  Resting a hand on Reggie’s back, Bederman strode with him into the mess.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Leah left another check-in message for TD and went straight back to Ginny’s room. Tim walked around in the cold of the backyard, finally settling on top of the Costco picnic table.

  He replayed the cell-phone message he’d received that morning: “I’ve been thinking about the drafting table, Timmy. I think your mother would want you to have it. Come on over tomorrow night—I’ll be up late.”

  He saved the message, stuffed the phone into his pocket. Contemplating the palm fronds scattered at the base of the back fence, he realized he’d grown less meticulous in keeping up the house. Until last year he’d been just as uptight as his father, and though no one would now accuse him of slackness, he would occasionally let dirty dishes languish overnight. Maybe he’d recognized the futility of feigning control. Or maybe he was just worn out.

  What would Monday hold? Once again keeping the world safe for sheet metal? TD’s empire would continue to metastasize, and Leah could very well resume being a cog in it.

  He heard the sliding door thunk closed and then the crunching-leaf sound of Dray’s approach. Her boots struck the far bench, the tabletop, then she slid down behind him, legs outside his, gloved hands cinching around his waist. She set her chin on his shoulder.

  “Growing up with my dad, I was never taught the moves. So I tried to... I guess fake it. I felt like the other parents really knew what they were doing. Part of me was always waiting for Ginny to catch on.”

  “You were a great father to Ginny.”

  “Maybe that’s why I stay in touch with him. My dad. To remember what I never want to be.”

  “You still need that?”

  When she was inclined, Dray could serve up a hell of a rhetorical. They watched a dead frond try to windsurf up the back fence. Determined bastard.

  Dray said, “Will just called.”

  “He wants to swim by and bump the prey again? Forget it.”

  “We’re not her parents, Timothy. At some point you’ve got to let her go.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Nothing’s simple,” she said.

  The frond rattled against the wood like a dying manta ray. “I’m all over the map,” he said. “I want to protect her, and I want her to protect herself. I want her to trust me, and I want to prove her trust right.”

  “None of it’s gonna get us Ginny back.”

  He bent his head. Dray brushed his hair back from his forehead. Rainwater ran across his lips, some of it salty.

  Will answered the door himself, the cavernous house behind him emanating the sound-swallowing hum of emptiness. He wore eyeglasses in thin gold frames, the arms pinching his graying hair at the temples and making it bow out in wisps.

  “Thank you for coming.”

  Tim followed him across the tile, their footsteps echoing off the high wooden ceiling beams. They turned right and headed down a broad hall, passing a set of yellow-and-blue paintings composed of blown-up benday dots. Entering a vast office, Will crossed the hardwood floor and collapsed into a mesh chair behind a glass-topped desk the size of two doors laid end to end. A director’s chair embroidered with WILL HENNING, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER sagged under a heap of scripts. Three sets of French doors spilled out onto the back lawn and a Bahamian-blue slab of an infinity pool.

  Interspersed with movie posters, framed photos of Leah dotted the walls. Leah on the awkward brink of her teens, spouting water in a swimming pool. Leah blowing out ten candles mired in a daunting restaurant dessert, Wolfgang Puck beaming at her shoulder. Leah wearing a life buoy like a sash, perched on the arm of a kid encumbered with an ill-fitting sailor’s cap and an oversize Adam’s apple, the anchor-bedizened streamer overhead proclaiming, CALABASAS HIGH JUNIOR PROM—SET SAIL FOR ROMANCE!

  Striking a contrast with the sleek furnishings, a lopsided ashtray sat on Will’s desk, glossy from some classroom kiln. LH was etched in the side. Tim had never seen Will smoke and, from the sweatsuits, algae juice, and exercise room, guessed he did not.

  Will wore a smirk, but his eyes were gentle. “How old does a woman have to be to no longer decamp to her mother’s?”

  Tim, who felt as disconnected from sitcom marital humor as from jokey golf maxims, managed a sympathetic shrug.

  “She’s exhausted, which is her version of pissed off. Long Beach for the weekend—I’d rather take bamboo shoots under the fingernails, but Emma finds it a haven. I sent Rooch and the nanny to look after her and the baby.” Will’s lips pursed. “Doug elected to take a few days off.”

  Aside from a plaque declaiming, THE SLEEPER CELL $367,923,000 DOMESTIC GROSS, the wall behind Will was dedicated to photos of him and Leah together—picnicking at the Hollywood Bowl, posing courtside with Shaquille O’
Neal, riding in a limo with Will hoisting up an award like a title belt.

  “The phone rang more then.” Will pointed to an impressive desktop telephone. “That quiet—it’s a kind of death knell for a producer. It used to be you needed a head of gray hair to run a studio. Now they’re fresh out of braces, telling you to cast a rap star, hire some MTV epileptic to direct.” The lighting accented his crow’s-feet. “I used to have it figured out, but they went and changed the rules on me. Now kids in Zegna suits tell me I’m their inspiration, I get lifetime-achievement awards. It’s all so... posthumous.” He studied the quiet phone. “There’s a reason all our heroes die young. The older we get, the less we have figured out.”

  Still standing, Tim slid his hands into his jacket pockets. “She kicked your ass in there pretty good. Leah.”

  Will nodded solemnly. “I’ve had better meetings.” He turned to the glass doors, watching the yellow husks of leaves cartwheel into the pool. “Leah’s father was a contractor. Simple guy. He died slow and hard. When I met Emma, she needed to be taken care of. She’d had Leah young, missed out on the part of her life that was supposed to be easy. And she was intoxicated by this whole world, the glamour.” A wave of his hand encompassed the room with its myriad Hollywood trinkets. “She wanted this new life, and I wanted to give it to her. That can be intoxicating in its own way, playing Richard Gere.”

  “And Leah?”

  His smile was soft, almost shy. “It’s different when you take someone else’s child into your life. There’s no genetic imperative. You either fall in love with them or you don’t. With Leah it took me about five minutes.”

  “When’s the last time you told her that?”

  Will fidgeted in his overpriced chair. “You get into these patterns with a kid. You give so much to them, so goddamn much. Now this cult leader wins her over so... cheaply.” His face darkened—anger shifting to grief and back again.

  “She’s still your daughter.”