She wiped away the tears that were rolling down her cheeks, and marched away. This time she didn’t stop.
I stood in stunned silence, and watched her head into the sunset. With each step away from me, my anger grew … to the point I felt like a volcano that was about to erupt. I took one last look at the ring box and then fired it as hard and far as I could into a sea of grape plants.
Chapter 67
Usually nothing can snap me out of a bad mood better than a good greasy cheeseburger. But it was going to take a lot more than that after what just happened.
That wasn’t to demean the burger—it was Dello’s good, which is the highest compliment I could give it. And even the wine was growing on me. I didn’t know much about the “brawny texture” or “luscious black cherry taste” that Archie had mentioned on the tour, but I knew it was going to get me really drunk, and that was all I cared about at this moment.
I looked out the window to see that the sun had finally set over Napa Valley—the darkness better fitting my mood.
I sat uneasily next to Gwen, both of us stewing. It was probably best to get off the marriage subject, but I tend not to let things go. I looked across the table at Joe and Archie, and said, “So you can get legally married in California now … do you plan on tying the knot? Marriage is such a great institution.”
I didn’t need to look for Gwen’s expression to know her thoughts. She was none too pleased, and wanted to institutionalize me. Good.
Archie answered, “I’m always happy when freedoms are offered to all … even if it takes longer than we’d hoped. But I’m not sure that would be for us.”
Joe ripped his napkin in half. “It’s just a piece of paper, and see how easily paper can rip?”
Gwen hit me with a glare, like this somehow made her point … as if they were a relatable example.
We were like two competing lawyers, and now it was Gwen’s turn to question the witness. “So how have you remained so happily together all these years … what’s your secret? Relationships can be hard work.”
They both got a good laugh at that one. “The same as any long relationship—good luck and timing,” Archie said.
“C’mon, it’s got to be more than that,” Gwen pushed.
Joe said, “My only advice to any couple starting out, is when the wind blows … and it will … hold on really tight.”
“And when your hands get so sore from hanging on, and it would be such a relief to just let go, that’s when you have to hold on tighter,” Archie added.
“Sounds like you’ve survived quite a few storms,” Gwen said. I could tell she was sending me glances to prove her points, but I refused to look at her.
“Now that would be an understatement,” Joe said.
“When I finally made it to LA, almost a year after my disappearance, I thought we had ‘made it,’ but little did I know that we hadn’t even begun. Joe had landed his first movie role by that time, and had entered a whole new world, with all new people, and I didn’t really see how I fit into it.
“And on top of it, I was a brand new person myself—Ward Seifert—and I needed to learn that person. All of this while I was in a new place, trying to remain hidden, and I wasn’t even twenty years old yet. It was overwhelming.”
“If Archie’s life-change was hard, mine was too easy. I was given anything I wanted, and all my needs and desires were met. And not to bore you with the same old Hollywood story, but the easy life led to hard liquor, and then harder drugs.
“When things got really bad, my family moved out here full-time to babysit me. I want to say they were concerned about my health, but the real reason was to gain control of the ‘murderer’ before he went off on a drunk tangent about a Studebaker Lark buried back in Connecticut.”
Archie placed his hand on Joe’s—I could tell this next part was tough to relive, maybe more so than the escape from Rockfield.
“The drugs got bad, and when the studio forced him to marry Mary Wadman, things got worse,” Archie said.
“It wasn’t so much the arranged marriage—those were common back then by the studios, and there were ways around it. It was that Mary might have been a bigger junkie than me, making us the worst possible pairing. May I pronounce you enabler and enabler. When people talk about the arrest for the domestic incident, neither of us even remembered it, we were so far gone.”
“The drugs were just too much to take, so I had no choice but to leave Joe and set out to find myself,” Archie said, his voice cracking. “And I did that the way many young high-school dropouts did back then—I was drafted, and sent to Vietnam. I spent two years there—’65 and ’66—and while I can’t say it was a good experience, as I saw things I still struggle to talk about to this day, it was the experience Ward Seifert needed.”
“I’d like to say I was pining away for him while he was gone, but I have no idea what went on those two years. The only thing I remember is spending a lot of time worshiping the porcelain god after another binge. Things just continued downward, and the acting jobs started drying up. When you can’t get an audition, and your father owns one of the biggest production companies in town, you know you have a problem. Or at least you should.”
“When I returned from Vietnam, it was like nothing had changed. Joe was still a mess, and I still had no direction. But in the back of my mind, I knew I wanted to be in his life, and I thought a good way to do that would be to get into the film industry, so I enrolled at USC film school. It wasn’t my calling, but it gave me a purpose, and I started to get my old confidence back.”
“While Archie was doing that, I continued on my roller coaster. We reunited a couple times, but I would continue to fall off the wagon, and it became this dysfunctional cycle. We kept riding it right through the 1970s, on, off, sober, relapse.”
“It was a helpless feeling,” Archie conceded. “To watch someone you care about continue to hurt himself.”
“It wasn’t until my father died in the early 1980s that the light bulb finally came on for me. It sounds terrible to say, but his passing removed a lot of my burden, and I felt I could start living as myself, instead of what he wanted me to be. I’m not going to say I haven’t had any slips over the years, but they were just minor bumps along a sober path. First thing I did was to get out of LA, and move to the house in Monterrey. Then I opened the rehab facility in Los Gatos, which allowed me to give back … it has been very cathartic, and began the healing process”
Archie picked up, “I had settled into a career in real estate in Orange County, and I was quite good at it. But I had to give Joe one more chance, and have faith that he’d turned the corner. So I moved my real estate business to northern California, to be closer. I made my mark in wine country, and then one day I came across this wooded piece of land covered in brush and poison oak. It didn’t look like much, but it was calling my name, and I knew enough about wine to realize that finding a piece of property up here with a south facing slope was like winning the lottery. From that day on, it’s been nothing but a labor of love.”
“As they say—find something you love to do, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life,” Joe said.
Archie appeared to like that. He raised his glass, and toasted, “To finding something you love.”
We raised our glasses, and I met Gwen’s eyes. The tension between us began to fade.
And then the lights went out.
Chapter 68
“Get down!”
I heard Archie’s voice, but my mind and body didn’t make the connection. The next thing I felt was a pain in my ribs as I hit the floor.
I heard my wine glass shatter. Bullets were pelting the table and walls behind us. It was disorientating, and I couldn’t tell where they were coming from, but I only had one thing on my mind—Gwen!
“JP!?” she called out.
“I’m here,” I said, although, I wasn’t sure exactly where that was.
Archie’s voice rose over the gunfire. “Get out as fast as
you can. And stay low!” He pushed me in the right direction. I was surprised that he was crouched down next to me, and realized the pain in my ribs had come from him tackling me to the floor.
No time for a thank-you—I reached out in the dark and felt Gwen’s hand.
We began crawling down the dark hallway as fast as possible. The shooting was intensifying. My instinct was to get up and run, but something told me that if I was going to follow orders once in my life, this would be the time to do it.
We kept crawling until we reached a screen door. I breathed in the outside air, and it smelled damned inviting. I would lead—if they had us in their sights, Gwen could remain safely on her belly while I was made into target practice. I stood and opened the door. I held it open for the longest couple of seconds of my life as she crawled through. I heard plenty of shots in the background, but none came our way.
It was pitch black, the only light coming from the twinkle of the stars above. It seemed that our assailants had cut the electricity—they were no rank amateurs.
We ran as fast as we could away from the house. Part of me felt guilty not going back to help Archie and Joe Jr., but there was nothing we could do at this point but try to save ourselves.
As we ran, another noise joined the gunfire—it was the barking of the dogs. The barks were loud and desperate, and then they went silent. I knew what had happened, and I was as pissed as I could remember. I wanted to go back and give these assholes a piece of my mind. Gwen grabbed my hand, and dragged me ahead into the vineyard.
The gunfire ceased, but the sound of footsteps grew louder behind us. They’d shocked us into flight, and now they were on the hunt—closing in on their prey.
We didn’t have much going for us at the moment, but we did have a good recollection of the layout from our recent tour. The symmetrical rows of grapevines were dissected by dirt paths. Once we found a path, we could run unobstructed, even in the dark. I recalled the thick forest at the far end of the property—if we could make it there, we could hide out, and hopefully buy time.
The plan sounded great in theory. And it was going well until I tripped into a pile of brush. Gwen returned to me, and helped to pull me to my feet. My eyes had begun to adjust to the dark, and as she helped me up I got a brief glimpse of our pursuers.
“Oh shit!” I whispered.
“What is it?” Gwen said as we started to run again.
“They’re using night vision goggles.”
Our adrenaline kicked us to another level.
The goggles meant they were playing in daylight, and confirmed that they were professional killers—not the kind you often escape.
We arrived at a row of manzanita trees. We weren’t going to outrun them, so hiding was our only hope. We moved behind the largest of the trees, and just as we did, bullets splintered its bark. Gwen used her hand to stifle her scream.
Then came a voice from above, which almost made us jump out of our skin. “Funny meeting you here.”
We looked up to see Joe Jr. He shimmied down to join us, and our hearts began to beat again.
We stayed as low as possible. Shots continued hitting the trees, and I started to get the idea that they weren’t meant to hit us. It was a diversion, so our attackers could march unchallenged to us. Our options were dwindling—make another run for it, or surrender. We needed to find that third door.
“Where’s Archie?” Gwen asked Joe Jr.
“We had to split up—make it harder for them. You two should have done the same.”
Gwen and I looked at each other, quickly dismissing such thinking—if this was it, we were going down together. But my girl wasn’t going down without a fight.
She had an app on her phone that allowed a video to be taken in the dark. It wasn’t remotely comparable to their night-vision, but it might give us a read on the position of our attackers.
She slowly moved the phone into position, extending her arm from behind the tree. But it would be a short film—the phone exploded into a million pieces when a bullet split through it. Gwen pulled her arm back and shook it to make sure it was still attached.
“I can see you,” a voice called from a distance. “Come out with your hands up, or next time that will be your head.”
They did know our general location, but they couldn’t see us—if they could, we’d be dead by now.
There was also something about the voice that surprised me—it was female. I didn’t expect that.
Joe Jr. spoke in a hushed tone. “I’ve lived a long life—you two have many years ahead. So I will give myself up, and you make a run for it.”
Before we could debate the merits of his offer, there was a rustling in the trees beside us. I turned, but it was already too late. Standing before us was one of the attackers, this one male, dressed in fatigues and his face hidden by the night-vision goggles. And he held a gun to Gwen’s head.
I started to make a move at him, but he held all the cards. We needed to change the game. “Time to split up, Joe—get out of here!” I called out.
By doing so, we would discover which of us they were after. If it were Joe Jr. and Archie, he would follow Joe. If it were me, then he’d continue to hold Gwen hostage. The response would determine how much negotiating power we had … if any.
Joe Jr. followed my lead and dashed through the trees, into the darkness. The attacker didn’t move a muscle.
And it didn’t take long to understand why. His partner—the female—returned shortly with Joe Jr., holding a knife to his neck.
“You shouldn’t have stuck your nose in family business,” the male said to me, pointing his gun in my direction. It was a Glock—the military-style automatic weapon he’d been shooting at us with was now attached to his back like a knapsack. He didn’t come empty handed.
“Shoot the bitch first—she tried to steal our money,” the female barked.
I didn’t understand what she meant, but clearly she was the boss, and he would follow her orders. That wasn’t good news for Gwen.
He pushed the Glock into Gwen’s temple, and her eyes bulged out of her head. I pleaded, “Shoot me—let her go!”
He coldly informed me that I was going to die anyway, so not to worry. He smiled at me, and switched the gun from her temple to her mouth. Gwen was shaking uncontrollably, her eyes begging me to do something. The attacker looked to me and began to say something, but nothing came out.
Because there was a gaping hole in his neck.
He stood dazed for a moment, before crashing to the ground. I ran to Gwen, who looked to be in a daze herself.
The female pulled the knife tighter on Joe Jr.’s neck. “Call to him, or I slit your throat.”
Joe refused, but she was smart enough not to kill the one piece of leverage she had. So she called out herself, her threats echoing off the mountains in the distance, “Show yourself, or I’ll skin him from ear to ear!”
A few seconds went by with no response. She was growing more desperate. “You have three seconds. Three … two …”
She started to cut into his neck. Then the knife fell to the ground, and she screamed out. Gwen followed with a scream of her own. And then I joined in. The attacker no longer had a hand!
“Get down!” Joe Jr. yelled to us. We did, but the attacker stood stunned, staring at the place where her hand had been. The next bullet pierced her heart, putting her out of her misery.
Gwen and I helped each other to our feet, unable to take our eyes off the dead woman. “Holy crap,” Gwen mumbled.
The shooter was obviously not interested in us, as no more shots were fired.
As Joe Jr. checked the two bodies for any signs of life, Archie stepped through the trees to where we were standing. “Is everybody alright?” he asked in a commanding voice.
We nodded without a word.
He noticed my stare at the sniper rifle he was carrying. “Vietnam—sharpshooter. I never thought it would come in so handy,” he said.
I had many questions, but he didn’t s
eem like he wanted to discuss it any further, and I was having trouble putting words together, anyway.
But we did get one answer. Joe pulled away the goggles from the attackers, revealing their identities. He knew who they were. We all knew who they were.
Part Five —
Doctor Know
Chapter 69
September 2, 1961
Bette Hastings twirled around with a big smile on her face. “So what do you think?” she asked her friends Liza and Joan.
“You look like a grown-up,” Liza sounded astounded, as she viewed the sleeveless “little nothing” dress Bette wore.
Bette kept smiling. “Well, I am going to high school in a few days, so I need to look sophisticated. I told my mother’s stylist that I want to look like Mrs. Kennedy … but with my curls!”
“My parents would kill me if they caught me in a skirt that went halfway up my kneecaps,” Joan commented.
“Which is why you’re still wearing poodle skirts in 1961,” Liza said with a laugh, and Joan took offense. Joan always took offense. Liza returned her attention to Bette, “I’ll bet this has a lot more to do with college than high school.”
It took Joan a moment to figure out Bette’s intent, before blurting out, “You still have a crush on your older boy, don’t you? I thought he told you to scram!?”
Bette picked a daisy from the fairgrounds and began peeling away petals. “He loves me, he loves me not,” she kept on until only one remained. She smiled again. “I guess he loves me.”
“You went to see him, didn’t you? That’s where you disappeared to,” Joan said.
“We didn’t know what happened to you—you slipped away pretty quick after we had our photo taken,” Liza added.
“For your information, I had a hair appointment that I couldn’t be late for,” Bette said in her most grown up voice, but then a childlike giggle slipped through. “But I might have gone to see him afterward.”
Joan got to the all-important question, “Did you kiss him again?”
Psycho Hill (JP Warner Book 3) Page 27