Gordon sounded shaken. “Max? Max? Where are you?”
“You gotta come for me, Gordon. I’m in a town called Paradox. And they said come alone—no police. If there are any police they’ll slit my throat. They want a million dollars by sunset.”
“I can’t come up with that kind of money!”
Max muffled the phone again. Begging, pleading with himself. Clapping his hands together once, twice—simulating hard slaps to the face. (He used to get high with a Foley artist. The guy was a real bore except when he was ripped, when he would perform his best sound effects.)
More barked orders. A kitchen chair thrown across the room. When Max spoke again he was almost hyperventilating from all the activity. Max was able to summon tears at the drop of a hat (even though as a leading man, he was never allowed to do so) and so he let tears seep into his voice. “They’re serious about killing me, Gordon. They want one million dollars in small bills.”
“But I can’t—”
“If you don’t bring the money…please, oh God, no, Jesus!”
“OK, OK, just tell them to stop. Tell them I’ll be there!”
“Someone will call you in a little while and give you the address. Please, Gordon, no cops. They said they’ll kill me, and they’ll kill you.” Max hit End. The phone rang again but this time he didn’t answer.
Let Gordon stew for a while.
A half hour later, he called Gordon once again with the address. He made sure he sounded like a dork.
MAX FIGURED IT would take Gordon time to round up the money, but he wanted to be in place early enough for his ambush to work. He had to be prepared for the possibility—the probability—that Gordon wouldn’t come alone. He needed a place to see Gordon’s approach—he should be far enough from the house that he could see who Gordon had with him, but close enough to get the jump on them. Fortunately, there was a corral across the road and halfway up the hill opposite. At the far side of the corral stood a ramada and a galvanized steel water tank, now empty. It looked like there hadn’t been a horse there in years. Max positioned himself behind the tank. It was hot as hell—the shade of the ramada had not yet reached him. He watched the road to the house until he was cross-eyed. He’d see the dust long before a vehicle showed up.
Max looked at his array of phones and decided to keep the prepaid for emergencies, since he doubted it was charged for more than an hour or two. He was starting to like Luther’s smartphone. He used it to call Dave Finley.
“Yo.”
Max said, “It’s me.”
“What’s going on? You OK? Damn it, bud, everyone’s wondering what happened to you. Karen said you called, but I tried your phone and just got voice mail.”
Max thought of the phone, buried in a plastic bag near a barbed-wire fence somewhere along the freeway north of here. Max told him about that.
“You mean you buried your phone in the desert? Why would you do that?”
“Have you heard anything?”
“Just what Karen said. She said you sounded all screwed up. Where are you, man? I could come get you.”
“Come and get me?” Had he heard right? “I thought you were working.”
“The Matt Damon? That was a one-week gig, it ended yesterday. What’s going on?”
Max thought about it. He went in and out of being able to think clearly, and right now, his mind was buzzing like a hive of bees. Had Jerry Gold told Dave about the kidnapping?
No. Jerry knew Max and Dave were friends, but as far as Max’s business manager was concerned, Dave was just the help. Somebody who palled around with Max on Max’s downtime. So unless Gordon had gone to the press, which Max was pretty sure he wouldn’t do, Dave didn’t know what had happened.
What was about to happen.
Max looked down at the semiautomatic sitting in the dirt by his leg. Was he really thinking of holding a gun on Gordon White Eagle? Was he that crazy?
“Hey, Max! You there?”
What had he planned to do? Ambush Gordon, and put the gun to his head?
“Max, look. I know you’ve been under a lot of pressure, and I don’t blame you for leaving that place. You need a break, man—just chill out a little, then you can get back to work.”
Get back to work. That was what everybody wanted. They didn’t care about him; they just wanted him to get back to work so everyone could draw a paycheck.
“I’m getting a divorce,” Max said. Saying it even surprised him. But it was incredibly liberating.
“A divorce? Really?”
“Yup.”
“What about the kid?”
He’d forgotten about the baby Talia was going to bring back from Africa. Funny he could forget something like that. “I don’t know,” he said slowly.
“Are you serious? That’s going to look really cold, man. You just going to leave her with the kid? Just like that? We tried to go the adoption route, and I don’t think—”
“Let her work it out. I’m sure she and Jerry will figure it out.”
“Jerry?”
Max said, “It was Jerry’s idea—the whole adoption thing. He said it would raise our profile—make us look selfless and responsible…”
He flashed on the day Jerry had laid it out for them. Why not adopt a baby from Africa?
It had seemed reasonable at the time.
Even thinking about it, how Jerry had presented them with the “promotional opportunity,” without a thought for the child who would be brought to the United States as a prop in a publicity stunt—
Unbelievable. Had he gone that far afield?
He thought of the buried meds and booze in his backyard.
Yes, he had gone that far afield.
A stupid ploy like that, and Max had agreed to it. Talia had loved the idea, started planning all the expensive baby stuff from Petit Tresor for furnishings or a whole designed nursery by Wendy Bellisimo, and Baby Dior for clothing—he knew the names she tossed around by heart by this point. He’d sat passively by while they—Talia and Jerry—made a decision like that. Without a thought for the child who would be coming, without a thought of what the future would be like for that child or for Talia or even for himself. Anything to feed the beast. Celebrity was a state that constantly altered; it needed to be fed and watered and entertained and placated, or it could disappear any minute.
Max hated himself at that moment. How could he have been so stupid? So out of touch with reality?
“Max?” Dave was saying. “You guys are really through?”
“Talia doesn’t know, and I don’t want you telling her. In fact, I don’t want you to tell anyone we’re talking. I have to sort a few things out. I need the space. Is that OK? Will you give me that?”
“Sure…but why?”
“Because I’m asking you to, brother.”
A pause. “You can count on me,” Dave said solemnly.
“Good.”
“Hey, where are you, man?”
Max told him.
Silence. Then Dave said, “You know what? I could come out there and pick you up.”
“Come out? What are you talking about?”
“I could bring the bikes. I could drive ’em out there and you and I could ride back to LA. Like the old days, when you were just starting out.”
“That’s crazy.”
“No it’s not. I could leave now. We were filming out near Death Valley and I decided to drive over and see Seth.”
“Seth?”
“The guy with the bike shop in Blythe, remember? I took a couple of Harleys for the shoot and figured I was close enough to Blythe he and I could go for a ride. But I could just as easy drive over so’s you and I could ride back.”
“What about your rig?”
“Seth can drive it.”
“I don’t know.” Max was getting a headache. What Dave said didn’t make much sense to him. “Have you talked to Jerry?”
“Jerry?” Dave snorted. “Why would I talk to that pissant?”
Max rubbed
his forehead. The throbbing above his left temple drove him crazy. The heat was getting to him too. What was he thinking, planning to ambush Gordon? What would he do—wave the gun in his face? Could he really get Gordon to fix him?
“That sounds good,” Max said. “I could use a good ride about now.”
“I can be out of here in a couple of hours.”
Max heard an engine—sounded like a truck. Far enough away, but going slow.
“Let me think about it,” Max said. “I’ll call you back, OK?”
“Max, if you—”
But Max didn’t hear him. He was watching the white truck coming his way.
Chapter Eighteen
THE TRUCK WAS a new Chevy. A Silverado 2500HD, the same kind of truck Dave Finley hauled his bikes with. There was something stealthy about the way the truck moved, even though the engine was big. It cruised to a stop just beyond the nearest neighbor to Luther’s, about an eighth of a mile away.
Max had seen it before.
His heart sped up. Something was wrong here…How could Gordon react that quickly? He rummaged through his memory bank, trying to place the truck. There were plenty of expensive new trucks and Suburbans at the Desert Oasis, but all of them had the center’s logo on the side. This one was plain, no frills, the kind of truck a company would buy for a work vehicle.
The passenger door opened and a boy hopped out. The kid wasn’t big—kind of weedy-looking—but he wasn’t a little kid. Closer to a teenager. He held a gun down by his side but at the ready. Maybe he’d learned how to do it from cop shows.
The driver’s side opened and a figure stepped out. From where Max was, the lower half of the person was blocked by the truck’s hood. The person was lean and straight-backed, with hair clipped close to the skull. Max thought it was a woman, but he wasn’t sure. The person was dressed like a man and moved economically. The two of them met in front of the truck.
It was a woman. But like none he’d ever seen. She moved like a man. He wondered if she’d had a sex-change operation.
The woman spoke to the kid. He nodded and trotted across the dirt road toward the west, ran up a desert hill and disappeared. The woman walked up the road. Casual. Glancing at her watch. A big watch—a man’s watch, like his Breitling. When she reached the tall bamboo ringing Sam P.’s yard, she crouched low and followed it to the entrance, gun at the ready.
Max remembered where he’d seen the truck. It had been parked outside the Rat Motel. He remembered the truck pulling out and following the limo.
Either Jerry or his brother Gordon—probably it was both of them—had sent the guys in the limo. So why had the woman and kid followed them? Did they hope the limo would lead them to him?
Did more than one set of people want him?
He was beginning to feel like a pawn.
Max took a deep breath. He had no doubt the woman and boy would come here to the corral, once they finished with the house. Maybe they’d find his kidnappers. They would surely see the shot-up Saturn, the glass, the evidence of a gun battle in the carport.
Where was the kid? He had gone west, which meant he could be circling around the corral. Kid could have seen him from that angle, might be closing in even now. Max had no doubt the kid knew how to use his firearm. Max had spent time shooting at a range; he had been taught to shoot and shoot relatively well. He had worked with marksmen. The kid had carried his weapon as if it had grown out of his arm. Casual, but alert.
Max could easily be seen hiding behind the tank. He should move. But there was no place to go.
He had the semiautomatic. He could shoot the boy if it came to that.
But could he?
He’d almost blown Sam P. to kingdom come. But this was a boy. He didn’t think he could shoot a boy.
But where to hide?
A sharp whistle rent the air.
The woman stood at the edge of the carport, among the broken glass, looking in his direction.
No, not his direction, to the right. Far to the right.
The kid yelled, “What?”
The woman stuck two fingers in her mouth and blew again.
Max sank into the ground, flat on his stomach. He hunched his shoulders like a turtle hiding in its shell. He hoped the color of his body and his clothing would look like a shadow on the earth. He heard the boy run, maybe thirty yards from him, to his right. Pelting footsteps, occasionally sliding on rock and sand, the kid yelling, “What is it?”
Max had the absurd desire to close his eyes.
Instead, he canted his head slightly, so he could see the house.
The woman and the boy stood outside the carport. The woman started around the Saturn, moving loose-limbed but alert, like a panther.
They were swallowed up by the shadows. If Max was going to escape, he’d better do it now.
Chapter Nineteen
WHENEVER JERRY GOLD was conflicted about something—“conflicted” being one of Gordon’s favorite expressions (Jerry’s half brother had upscale hippie psychobabble down to a science, along with the unlimited wardrobe of Hawaiian shirts, tai chi pants, and Birkenstocks)—he reverted to what he’d been before he became Max Conroy’s manager. Always, he went back to the storyboard.
Better to cover all the bases.
He locked Talia out of his office, grabbed a ream of 8 ½" x 11" copy paper and his favorite Sharpie, and set up on the desk overlooking the pool. Talia knocked halfheartedly a couple of times, then gave up. The woman had the attention span of a gnat. He wondered now why he had gotten involved with her at all. Yes, there was the secret pleasure of banging Talia L’Apel, a big star in her own right, and he cherished the idea of cuckolding Max Conroy, heartthrob of girls and women from fourteen to sixty. She was terrific in bed too. You’d be surprised how many hot-bodied actresses weren’t. It sometimes seemed the more alluring and sexy they appeared, the more frigid they were in the boudoir. Not so with Talia, who brought the same exuberance to the sack as she did to the ski slopes.
Gordon had called an hour ago, telling him about the kidnappers in some hick town called Paradox and their demand for a million dollars by sunset. He was relieved that the kidnappers had called again, after Talia had turned them down. But on the minus side, there was no way Gordon could possibly come up with the money that quickly. And the idea of letting go of a million dollars…
What if the kidnappers got the million dollars and killed Max anyway? And left him to rot in the desert sun somewhere for hunters to find six months from now?
Fortunately, there was a Plan B.
“You remember Shaun?” Gordon said. “She’s Mickey Barron’s granddaughter. The stunt man.”
“I thought she was a stunt woman.”
“That’s right, Jer. It runs in the family.”
Jerry said, “But she’s the one who—” He lowered his voice. “The one, who, you know, at Big Bear Lake?”
“Why are you whispering?”
“You know people listen in on cell phones.”
“How’s this? She’s the one who looks like a man. You met her when she was here one time.”
Jerry did remember meeting her. How could he ever forget? Jerry suppressed a shudder. When he had first met her, he really couldn’t tell if she was a man or a woman. Not because she was ugly—she wasn’t—but because of the vibe she gave off. The way she carried herself, the way she walked. Maybe it was her center of balance. Little things, all put together to create an odd, well, dissonance. But that wasn’t the worst thing. What really got to Jerry was the feeling that she was sizing him up for a coffin. She spooked the hell out of him, and that was even before he learned about her résumé.
“Are you listening, Jerry?” Gordon said. “This is important. She’s going to extract him from the kidnappers. And the good news? She’s already there. I sent her to find him.”
“In Paradox?”
“That’s right.”
“It’s still dangerous, though. What if he gets killed in the crossfire?”
&n
bsp; “You ever look on the bright side?”
“Just hedging my bets. That’s what I wanted to tell you about—I’m in the middle of something here. I’m writing an alternate storyboard. And you know it could work, especially if we don’t have the body. It might be easier too.”
“Shaun’s going to get him and bring him back, Jerry. Everything’s going to be fine. These guys who took him sound like Grade A dildos. They’re in too deep and they don’t have any idea who they’re dealing with. Nobody messes with Gordon White Eagle.”
Jesus, Jerry thought; he really takes himself too seriously. He wondered if Gordon was using a little of his own product—the pot he supplied some of the underage counselors with. That, or all that guru happy-crappy had gone to his head. “I’ll write the alternate scenario, just in case.”
“It hasn’t been researched, Jer. You can’t just come up with something off the cuff and think you can fool the cops. Everyone these days is a forensic expert after all those years of watching CSI. We have to get this right the first time, because there won’t be another. I worked damned hard to get Max to where I wanted him psychologically, and in my professional opinion, he’s primed. I put a lot of work into him, Jerry, and I’m proud of my work. He’s more than just a soon-to-be-dead movie star. He’s proved my thesis!”
Jerry laughed out loud. “I don’t think you’re going to be able to patent that, Gord.”
“No, but I’ve proved to myself I can do it,” Gordon said—a little prissily, Jerry thought. “And you’re not going to mess it up for me. We agreed this was the way to go.”
“It sure is fucked up now, though, isn’t it, Gord? How’d he get away from you? Now we’ve got kidnappers demanding money, and what if they hack him to little pieces? Talk about a damn clusterfuck!”
“Shaun’s good. She’ll get him back, and she’ll get him back in one piece.”
But Jerry heard a smidgen of doubt in Gordon’s voice. And anyone who knew Gordon knew he never suffered from doubt.
After Jerry ended the call, he went back to his new storyboard. It was beginning to take shape—simple, elegant, with a logical explanation for the lack of a body.
He liked it.
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