by Susan Dunlap
As if to reiterate that she didn’t have to tell me anything, she walked over to a three-foot-high ball lying on the floor and jumped up on it, balancing with apparent ease.
“I could smack you off.”
“You could try.”
“Playing for Ryan Hammond?”
She shifted her hips, keeping balance on the ball. It was akin to my lawyer-brother’s balancing on two chair legs. I’d watched him distract people so completely they forgot what it was they were asking. The ball was dead still and Zahra atop it appeared the same until, abruptly, she bent right, sending it left. It took exquisite control for me not to thrust out my hands to catch her as she twisted, leapt, and landed lightly on top once more. “I’m not surprised,” I said, “but I’m definitely impressed.”
She straightened up and smiled.
Then I shoved her off. “So, how is it you know him?”
Her shoulders tightened and I was sure she was going to stonewall, but she said, “Truth, I don’t know Hammond. Only know the story of him.”
“Which is?”
“I’ll walk you back to the truck.”
And make sure I leave. I followed her outside. The dry heat was searing. It was hard to breathe. But Zahra Raintree moved effortlessly and so fast it was all I could do not to pant. “Hey, slow down, unless you want to tell this tale to Blink Jones. Is Ryan Hammond a stuntman?”
She eased off infinitesimally. “He was a kid on his first location, a gofer there.”
I’d heard Blink’s version. I was anxious to get hers. “Where?”
“Don’t know. Doesn’t matter. Here’s his claim to fame. He’s a kid—twenty-one, twenty-two—and so excited about being on the set that he brings his girlfriend. Well, you can imagine how well received that was. Second unit director tells Hammond to pack up and take the girlfriend with him. Hammond’s humiliated. And he’s new, so he trots over to the director—”
“The director.”
“Mr. Big. In this case, Casimir Goldfarb.”
“Mr. Big indeed.”
“Right. Mr. Big Ego, Mr. Big Womanizer. You can tell where this is going.”
“Goldfarb tells Hammond they can stay and then he makes a play for the girlfriend?”
“You got it. No one’s surprised except Hammond. Girlfriend blows off Hammond before he can open his mouth to whine. She’s moved into Goldfarb’s trailer by day’s end. Hammond, of course, is a mess. I mean, you got to feel for the kid. Here’s this famous director in his trailer showing the girlfriend his Oscar and much much more.”
“And then?”
“There was a predawn call. Goldfarb leaves his trailer. Normally, it’s locked, but of course this morning the girlfriend’s inside. She lets Hammond in. He takes Goldfarb’s Oscar and leaves.”
I couldn’t help laughing.
“That was everyone’s reaction. Goldfarb, as you probably know, was a royal pain and a priss. And, boy, did he value that Oscar. I mean, he carted it with him to a location set! How crazy is that! Locked his trailer religiously. And then, well, it’s perfection.”
“But what about Hammond?”
“No one’s heard of him since. No surprise. It’s not as if he could get on with some other company. Goldfarb was on a tear about him. He was blackballed on every set in this country, this continent, and if they’d been making pictures on Mars he wouldn’t have gotten a job there.”
“Damn. Isn’t there anyone who can track him down? What about the girlfriend? What became of her?”
She turned to face me, and for the first time she looked pleased. “This story’s made the rounds for a decade. Everybody’s got opinions. But you are the first person who asked about her. Lots of offhand speculation, none of it flattering. None of it accurate.”
“You know anything?”
“Oh, yes.”
We were twenty yards from Blink’s truck. She stopped.
“The story is that a pissed-off young guy steals Oscar while airhead girlfriend fucks Goldfarb. Truth is, Ryan Hammond stalked off. She took the Oscar, let the blame fall on him.”
“She took it? How do you know that?”
“Because”—she was enjoying this—“she told me.”
“The girlfriend came here? How did she even know you existed?”
“She turned up here. Wanted to know what the statuette would go for. When I told her no one can sell the things, she went wild. I thought she was going to bash me over the head with it, she was that out of control. Then she charged off and did the one thing she was apparently quite good at.”
“What?”
“She hot-wired my car.”
22
I HAD A hundred more questions for Zahra, but she had no more answers for me. She never broke into a run, but she strode toward her house at a pace that had me trotting to keep up, firing questions futilely until she shut the door behind her. Amazing woman. You couldn’t exactly call her a role model, but she’d created a world most aging stunt doubles could only dream of.
As put out as Blink had been on this whole trip, I expected he’d be revving up the engine and swinging open the door for me. Instead he rolled down the window and said, as if reading my mind: “You probably want to see those chimneys before you leave, huh?”
“I won’t be long.”
“Check ’em out good; we’re not coming back.” As he spoke, he hoisted himself down from the truck and began to keep pace with me.
I started to wonder just what it was he hoped or feared I’d discover. Of course, he was holding something back; I never expected otherwise. “Now that I’ve met Zahra, I understand about her, just like you said. You’d never have brought me here without her okay, right? So, what’s your connection?”
He didn’t respond for a bit, then surprised me with what sounded like the truth. “I’m a gofer. It’s not easy to get someone who’ll run in groceries, mail, you name it. I respect her, and she pays good. Can’t beat that.”
It was an oddly domestic arrangement for a guy like Blink. And hardly convenient for someone who lived hours away. “How’d you come into this little sinecure?”
I waited for an answer, but he only sighed.
“People have written screenplays in less time than you’re taking to create an answer.”
“Are you suggesting—”
“No, I’m saying definitely, what I want is the truth. How’d you meet Zahra? How come she picked you to be her errand boy?”
“Why does it matter?”
“I’m going to find out what was going on with Guthrie and how that connects to the ranch. You’re going to want to know before word gets out, right?”
He could have protested, but he just nodded.
“So, either we’re in this together or we’re not. Your choice.”
He seemed to be considering.
“All I need is the short version.”
“Shortest one is this: I hit a rough patch a few years back. Landed me in the middle of nowhere headed the wrong way, toward more serious nowhere. I needed a place to crash. Stuff was bad with me, real bad. But then I remembered two things, the first was Zahra Raintree. She’d been on a set five years before that, bitching up a storm about her divorce—that her ex ended up with the stock and she got some miserable hole in the desert outside a town that used to be a resort and wasn’t even that anymore. ‘A hole outside a has-been,’ she called it.”
“29 Palms isn’t going to be including her in their brochures.”
“Later, I heard rumors she’d had a bad screwup and got a gonzo settlement. It was a real long shot she’d be at the ranch, much as she’d bad-mouthed it. But, either way, it’d work for me, or so I thought. If I’d known how remote it was, I’d have thought twice, believe me.”
What I’d viewed as the “small” chimney now thrust up in front of me a couple of feet above my head. Had it had a broiler, it could have been on a patio in Encinitas. The whole thing was brick—bricks Zahra had to have hauled in. This entire business—the chimneys,
Guthrie’s connection to them, the place itself—was hard to get my mind around.
Climbing the brick sides was a snap. I peered into the chute. I could have lowered myself down and had enough room to bend over—not easily or comfortably, but still I could do it. But there was no need to. The sun was high enough now to show it empty. Here in the desert, not even a couple of leaves had blown in. How could Guthrie have been unnerved by it? But fear is fear; the object’s secondary. Who was I to judge? I just felt bad for him.
I jumped back down next to Blink. The guy was a caricature of disinterest. It made me wonder just what he suspected—or feared—might be hidden in one of these chutes. I let him talk on about finding the ranch as we headed to the middle one.
“So, I’d had a real spate of bad luck and I was due. The first guy I caught a ride with bought my story about heading to a job to help me get on the wagon. I must’ve looked totally wasted, quick as he was to believe that. He dropped me at the top of the road down.”
“What was the second thing?”
“That almost anyone will be glad to see you if you’re willing to pull your own weight.”
“So, what happened then?”
“My luck turned. Okay, I was stuck back of beyond, but I’d come at just the right time. The only guys here were deadbeats. There’d been good people before—I learned that later—but right then there were just three lowlifes living off her. She’d built the barn, but there was nothing in it. The road for car gags was mud. She was too down to deal with it. She’d had this great, decent idea to help out people who needed it and the whole thing had come to nothing but a rest stop for hangers-on. If I hadn’t come, she’d have died. Literally. She was that depressed.”
“Blink to the rescue! Nick of time and all that?”
The man actually flushed. Thick-skinned as he was, I’d never have guessed a bit of sarcasm could turn him pink. “Hey, the loafers did pack up and I did impress upon them that it would not be to their benefit to come back or publicize the location. Then I dynamited the road and spent weeks creating the one that’s there now. Not long after that I headed back to town, but I made a deal with Zahra to keep helping from the outside.”
That deal, just what was in it for you? I couldn’t decide how much of his tale was true.
Being around these weird remnants of Guthrie was distracting. It was hard to switch my focus away from them. There couldn’t be anything worthwhile inside these chimneys. They’d sat here, open to the weather and the curiosity of stunt double after stunt double dealing with fears other than claustrophobia. Surely they’d all peered down, and some had climbed in. Hang a rope over the top, it’d be no problem. Only torture for Guthrie—Guthrie, whom I couldn’t remember ever being afraid. Wary, careful, yes. But never afraid. Why this?
“What would you say it is? Twelve feet?”
“’Bout.”
“You got a flashlight?”
The one he pulled from a pocket could have been in a spy catalog. It looked like a pen but had a light worthy of a tow truck. As I climbed up the bricks I considered the “coincidence” of his having that handy right now.
I leaned over the edge and peered down into the chute, aware of just how easy it would be for him to climb up, lift my legs, and send me headfirst to the bottom.
I shot the light down. Brick outside, brick inside. But this one was narrower than the shorter version. I could have braced my arms and legs and lowered myself down and inched back up without problem, even if there weren’t handholds, which there always were with weathered brick. Still, it had a murky feel to it. Poor Guthrie! But it also stood on bare ground. With a crane, it could have been lifted up and whatever in it exposed, be that Guthrie or . . . something hidden.
The tallest of the smokestacks was twenty yards away. I started to run, but Blink trailed behind. Why was he so interested in what I was doing? Did he suspect something was down in them, or was he just happy to waste my time? To keep me from poking into anything else back in town?
I hurried to the tall stack and climbed up. The outer bricks were every bit as easy to scale as the others. But the inside was a different story. The inner cylinder was metal, slick and just wide enough across for a stuntman to slide down. It was nowhere near broad enough to allow him to bend his elbows or knees and get purchase coming back up, assuming his shoes would stick on this slick surface. Bare feet? Not likely unless he went down in sandals. No way anyone could manage to untie laces. I didn’t need a phobia to be unnerved by this baby. What had Guthrie been thinking?
Despite the desert sun, I was shivering. I clicked on the flashlight and stared down. The tube was two stories high. The light bounced off the bright metal and I had to squint to make out even the disk that formed the bottom, to see how it was unlike the others. The bottom was actually a foundation. So, even with a crane there’d be no lifting the chimney up and freeing a prisoner at the bottom. I stuck my head in. “Omigod!”
“What?”
“It’s really hard to see down there.”
“What? What do you see?”
“I don’t know. It’s . . . hard . . .”
“Is it shiny?”
I stuck my head back into the tube, peering down. The dead air shrouded my head and neck. I was ridiculously relieved to come up for air and see Blink watching eagerly. “Really hard to see that far down. What could he have dropped?”
He didn’t answer.
“Forget it,” I said and snapped off the flashlight. “If something’s there, it’s not going anywhere. I’ll tell Zahra and—”
He came whipping up the bricks, sunglasses falling to the ground, key-ring still in his hand. “Where do you see it?”
“The edge. It’s tricky, but you have to get the beam right to the edge down there.” I held out the light. “This whole thing is freaking me out. I’m sweating all over. I’ll wait in the truck.”
“Fine.”
“Give me the keys.” I took the ring, lowered myself down the stack, forced myself to walk, not run, to the truck, got in, fastened the seatbelt, and started the engine as one would to turn on the air conditioning.
I’d be halfway up the exit road before he realized I was gone.
23
BLINK’S TRUCK WASN’T a junker. But in the family of vehicles it was a ne’er-do-well uncle dragging home after an all-night bender. The steering was loose, the brakes were stiff, and everything rattled. I eased out the clutch. The engine pulled, straining the low gear, but I wasn’t about to try shifting here where failure meant disaster—not and have to shift back the instant I started up the exit road. Coming down that road, peering out across the hood ornament into nothingness, I’d told myself that despite Blink’s warning, going uphill would be easier by far. It always is.
Or almost always. That miserable road Blink had built was all pebbly sand, no wider than the truck, with only a few low cacti to mark the drop-offs. An inch too far to either side and I’d roll the truck all the way back to the desert floor. Tires had worn ruts in the sand and I steered so the hood ornament stayed halfway between them. Now I understood why Blink had that odd addition! I just hoped—had to trust—that the ruts remained even and the rise between them reliable. There was no way to check. Even if I stuck my head out the window and looked down, I wouldn’t have been able to see anything but air.
“Hey, stop!”
I hit the gas. For an instant the wheels spun and then caught, jerking the truck to the right. I could feel the right tire grabbing air. It was all I could do not to snap the wheel back. I edged it slightly to the left, listening for the deeper sound of sand under the full width of tire, feeling for the evenness of the grip.
“Darcy!”
Blink sounded closer, but I didn’t dare adjust the speed or take my eyes off the road even to check the rearview mirror. All I could hope was that the heat, the run across the desert floor, and the steep road would slow him.
Ryan Hammond’s girlfriend, Melissa, stole the Oscar. She foisted blame on him.
Any hope he had of work in the business was gone.
Something scraped the fender. Blink? Could he—But no way. It had to be the cacti.
A “Melissa” claiming to be Guthrie’s wife was in the house with the Oscar. But it was only after I mentioned his name that she said she was his wife. If I’d asked for my brother John, or Gary, or Arnold Schwarzenegger, would she have annexed herself to them?
Still, she was there, with the Oscar.
Omigod! She brought the Oscar there. There was no reason to believe Ryan Hammond ever crossed the threshold.
The path was steeper. The wheels slipped. I had to slow down—I hated to—to check behind me for Blink. I forced myself to ease my foot up, feeling for the solid sound of traction. “Ah.”
He had to be somewhere behind me, on the path. If only I could go faster, but I didn’t dare.
Hammond and Melissa had once been involved. Maybe they got together again and Oscar made three. Maybe. I was in serious speculation land here. The only thing I was sure of was whenever there was a question these days, the answer was likely to involve Ryan Hammond.
Him, I couldn’t find. But her! There she was, just yesterday, in the house of his friend, Guthrie. How did she go from showing up at Zahra’s ranch with her stolen statuette to answering the door at Guthrie’s house with it and a gun? There might be connections other than via Blink Jones, but none so obvious.
The bumper hit rock—the cliff wall on the left. The truck bounced sharp right. I pulled left, held steady, and slowed. The bumper scraped the wall again, but it didn’t jerk the truck. My shoulders were near my ears. How much longer was this damned road, anyway? I kept moving a gnat’s breadth from the wall, very slowly easing the gas in. After a hundred yards or so, I checked the mirror. No Blink in sight. Had he given up and gone back down to co-opt one of those rusty rattletraps? Did they even have plates?
Something buzzed. I jumped, almost lost contact with the pedal. It was a moment before I realized the sound was my phone. It was vibrating. I was near enough to the top to get the signal! The truck crested the rise out of the basin where Zahra’s rancho hid, off the miserable goat track of a road Blink had built, and onto a superbly flat, graded, two lane. I turned west and stepped on the gas.