Total Immunity

by Robert Ward

  “That’s him. That’s Jimmy. Just the smartest kid you’d ever want to meet. Had a career all lined up for him in film. You can ask anybody. He could have been a great moviemaker. Like Spielberg or one of them. ’Cept you guys let out a little shit name of Billy Chase, who happened to drop by just to kill my boy. Shoulda been in prison. But you guys let him out.”

  Tears rolled down her cheeks. Jack couldn’t meet her eyes.

  “Listen to me. If I wanted to kill one of your agents, I would have every goddamned right to — you both hear me? But I didn’t do a damned thing. ’Cept die myself.”

  Jack sucked in his breath, then spoke.

  “Faye, I know this is hard for you. But somebody is killing agents connected to your son’s case . . .”

  Faye Gregson looked at Jack, and blinked as if she’d made some kind of connection.

  “I know you?”

  “No, ma’am,” Jack lied. “What about your husband, Dick Gregson? He took it really hard, too, right?”

  “Do I know you?” Faye Gregson repeated.

  “Jack’s been on television a lot lately about a case,” Oscar said.

  “Oh . . . what do you want to know about Dick?”

  “How he reacted. When —”

  “When Jimmy was murdered by your informant? Isn’t that what you called him? That’s a great fancy name for a piece of shit. How do you think he reacted? He was very . . . very . . . upset. Angry.”

  There was something curious about her words, Jack thought. When she described Dick Gregson’s anger, there was no real fury in her voice. And she seemed to be staring off into space, as though her mind were somewhere else.

  “What is it, Faye?” Jack said softly.

  “Nothing. See, Dick didn’t have a mean bone in his body. He was a long-distance trucker, and if he got, you know . . . upset . . . he just took on a few more loads. Used to say once he was out on the highway, his ‘road self’ kicked in. It was like everything back here was a dream to him. Didn’t mean a thing.”

  “Where’s Dick now?” Oscar said.

  “Died two years ago. Had a big accident up near Eureka. Wet highway, big bend. He didn’t make it.”

  Faye Gregson took another hit off her cigarette and glowered at them both.

  “Someone is killing everyone that was involved with my Jimmy?”

  “That’s right,” Jack said.

  “Goddamn. Jesus Christ!”

  She looked as though she were about to say something, then turned away and took two long drags off her cigarette.

  “Look, Faye,” Oscar said. “These guys who’ve been killed. They have families, too. Some of them have kids. So if you know something, please tell us.”

  She turned quickly then, filled with fury.

  “Oh, really? I lose my son because of you guys, and now I should step forward and save the lives of the very people who did it to him? You take care of a kid for years and years, worrying about him at school, every time he gets sick, but you tell yourself it’s all going to come out fine. But you know . . . you know somewhere deep inside you that it’s been wrong from the start. That the whole thing, the father, the son . . . you know it’s cursed, ’cause it was wrong . . . wrong from the start.”

  She broke down and sank back to the couch, her body shaking with sobs.

  Oscar looked through the dust motes at Jack.

  “Your husband, Dick? He wasn’t Jimmy’s father?”

  “No,” she said. “No . . . but Dick never knew.”

  “Then who?” Jack said.

  Faye Gregson put out her cigarette in a coffee cup and lit another one.

  “Thing was, Dick was gone all the time. See, I was used to having a big family. And friends. That’s how I grew up back in Iowa. So when we come out here, and Dick starts going away all the time . . . I was so lonely. I could hardly stand it. So finally I joined this tennis club. Which is where I met Roy Ayres. He was the owner of it. Supersuccessful man. He’d made millions of dollars in real estate, and he opened the club just for something to do. His wife had died from cancer, and he was lonely, too. Place was called The Palms, and it was beautiful. Roy also owned this restaurant and bar called The Ranchero. It was a great spot. Music and happy hour. It was just the gayest spot. Roy and I were friends at first, but he was so much fun, always ready with a story and a laugh. He paid attention to me. Thought I was beautiful. And you know what? I was. Yeah, I know I don’t look it now, but I was back then. I was young and beautiful, and he just lit up whenever he saw me. It was like I was alive again.”

  “You got pregnant?” Oscar said.

  “Yes. That’s right. And I was going to get an abortion. But Roy said not to. See, he and Dick were the same types. Dark complexioned, and near the same age, and sort of stocky. Roy said he’d always wanted a child, and the thought that it would be ours . . . He couldn’t bear to kill it. We figured we might get away with it. So I did it. I had Jimmy and I never told Dick the truth. Dick wasn’t all that into having a kid, anyway. But Roy, he was crazy for Jimmy. It was Roy who liked to take pictures and it was Roy who brought Jimmy his first camera, and it was him that saw that Jimmy had a natural talent for taking snapshots, and soon he got him a movie camera. By the age of four or five, Jimmy was making little home movies that were so clever. And with Dick away on long trips, Roy and Jimmy and I would drive in Roy’s big old white Caddy convertible and we’d go to Beverly Hills to Chasen’s and eat Sunday dinner, and we’d have our own little family. The real family, as I came to think of it.”

  Jack tried to say something — something that would be comforting — but there was nothing comforting to say.

  “And Jimmy, he just loved Roy. I never saw two people who loved each other so much. And he just blossomed with Roy helping him. Know what they did? They made little movies together. They wrote them down, real scripts with speaking parts and all that, and they acted ’em out. Started out with little horror movies. Dracula was the first one, ’cept they did their own, and they used the club and the bar as the castle. You never saw two people take to each other like they did. See, that’s when I learned what life was all about, and Roy did, too. He used to say to me that all the money he’d made in all his real-estate ventures and his club and bar, why, none of it meant anything at all besides having me and Jim. And then Jimmy got his internship at Universal — the youngest kid ever to get one since Spielberg — and you shoulda seen Roy; you shoulda seen him. He was so proud he could have busted, and I had to tell him to bring it down a little, you know, ’cause we still had Dick to deal with. That was a great summer, us going over there to see Jimmy and meeting so many of the stars and the big directors and producers. It was like all our dreams were going to come true. No, that’s not exactly it. It was more like dreams we’d never even knew we had were going to come true, ’cause being poor and from the Midwest, you don’t even dare to have dreams like we were having now. I mean, then . . .”

  She stopped and looked around, as though she’d suddenly dropped back to the real world, her sordid little living room with its smell of piss and death.

  “And then it happened. Jimmy and that Billy Chase. At first we thought he was going to be just fine. He laughed about it a little. But for two weeks he got tired at night. And he wasn’t interested in his cameras and his movies. He just didn’t care anymore. I knew there was something wrong. I should have taken him right into the hospital. But Roy said he was fine, said it was just me feeling guilty. I did, you know? I wasn’t a swinger. I believe in loyalty and my marriage oath. I wouldn’t ever have started with Roy ’cept I was so lonely. And then Jimmy went to bed that night, and when I came into his room in the morning and called him . . . ‘Jimmy? Jimmy?’ I said. ‘Time to get up, honey. You have school today, and they’re going to show your film in class. It’s your big day, honey.’ But he didn’t move. He just lay there. It’s funny, when you see a scene like that in a movie, the mother always screams. But I didn’t scream. It seemed like I knew this day was coming all alo
ng and the whole thing — me and Roy and Jimmy and our happiness — was all a setup, that life was just waiting to cut us down. ’Cause it was wrong from the start, and Jimmy . . . Jimmy was the product of a deal with the devil. I know that sounds terrible, but he was. He was an angel himself, but he came from us, and we were bad. And you . . . you guys were the devil come to get his due. And maybe I shouldn’t hate you, but I do. Part of me. Part of me is glad if you all die. I can’t help it. I just can’t.”

  She began to cry and make low mournful sounds, whimpering like a dog under a car wheel.

  Jack felt a chill run down his back. Oscar grimaced and looked away.

  “Faye, what happened to Roy?” Jack said, after she had quieted down.

  “It was funny,” she said. “He had such a strange reaction. When I told him, he just said he’d come over. And when he saw Jimmy lying there in his bed, turning blue, he just touched his head and looked up at the sky. And he said, ‘It’s all right. I can still reach him.’ And I said, ‘You can?’ and he said, ‘Yes, I can hear him. I can hear him talking to me.’ And then he smiled, and he said he was going to take care of everything. That it would take a long while, but he and Jimmy had a plan. It was so strange. It gave me the chills. I asked him what he meant, and he said they were going to make a movie. It was going to be great. They had to work out the plot . . . they had to come up with a plot that would blow everybody away, but it was going to happen. It was going to be the greatest work ever . . . ’cause it was going to be a movie in reality. Real people would be the actors. Then he began to touch Jimmy’s lips, like he could hear the words through his fingers and he was saying, ‘What’s that, Jim? You what? Oh, good. That is brilliant. Jimmy.’ And I told him we had to call the hospital, and he said, ‘Not yet.’ And he sat there with Jim, running his hands over his dead body, laughing and nodding his head. And said he had it, he got it. It would take a long time, but he would do everything Jimmy wanted. And then, after two hours of this, which made me sick . . . after two hours or so, he got up and walked out. And I called the police and the hospital, and they took my son away.”

  There was a long silence. Then Jack said:

  “And then?”

  “And then Roy disappeared. Two days later, he was gone. The club was there, the Ranchero Bar was there, but he was gone. And when I asked about him, the guys who worked for him, they’d never say anything at all. It was like he’d vanished into thin air. And I never saw him again.”

  “You have a picture of him, Faye?” Oscar asked.

  “Yeah, sure. But better than that, I still have their old home movies. Come with me.”

  They walked through the kitchen, with its filthy pots and pans sitting around like an old science project, and went out into the backyard, where Jack was surprised to see a small kidney- shaped swimming pool, with only three inches of water.

  The water was green, and there was a fine skin of scum on the top.

  They walked to the far end, and then to a small house . . . the pool house, Oscar guessed, back when Jimmy was alive and they had lunches out here and pitchers of lemonade.

  They went inside; both Jack and Oscar were shocked to find the place immaculate.

  There were five rows of old theater seats and a large screen. In the back of the room there was a projector, with a film ready to play.

  “It’s all ready.” Faye’s voice was light and cheerful, as if the years and all the pain had fallen away.

  “Jimmy never had a proper premiere, but in this theater his are the only movies we show. Of course there is usually a limited audience, myself . . . so today is very special. Sit down.”

  As she said it, she gestured graciously with her arms, as if she was welcoming royalty.

  They sat in the front row and waited as the leader film counted backward from ten . . .

  And then, there it was in front of them, the title The Deal, a Jimmy Gregson production. Written and directed by Jimmy Gregson, Produced by Roy Ayres.

  There was a fake thunderclap, and a shot of the tennis club. The club coat of arms — a palm tree crossed with a tennis racquet — appeared on the screen.

  The camera trailed up the driveway of the club, where a boy was tending the lawn. He was a beautiful boy, with great green eyes and thick black hair. An older man dressed in black came toward him. The scene was shot from behind the boy, who looked up at the man, a sad expression on his face.

  “What’s wrong?” the man said.

  “I want to play tennis,” the boy said. “But I’m not a member of the club.”

  Jack sat still. The voice was scratchy, but somehow familiar. “You must come to see my master,” the man said. “He will

  make it possible for you to not only join the club, but play like a champion.”

  “Really?” the boy said.

  “Really,” the man said.

  On the reverse angle, Jack and Oscar saw the man’s face. It was the bearded man . . . the one who had tried to run Jack over at the bar.

  “It’s our old friend,” Jack said. “Who is he?”

  “That’s Roy’s brother Terry,” Faye Gregson said. “He and Roy were in a fire when they were young. Roy came out fine, but Terry . . . well, it was very sad. He has to wear that beard to hide the scars.”

  Jack suddenly felt his stomach twist inside him.

  It still made no sense . . . but suddenly he saw it coming.

  “Speed the film up,” Jack said. “I’ve got to see Roy.”

  “No need to,” Faye said. “He’s in the next scene.”

  And indeed he was. There in the very next scene, shot at the old Ranchero Bar, late at night. A man greets young Jimmy, a man dressed in a string tie and a cowboy shirt. A man who tells him that he can not only make him a club member, not only a great player, but a boy who will be immortal.

  “You will live forever,” Roy Ayres, playing the mad scientist in his son’s film, says, hamming it up like Lionel Atwill in an old Warner Bros. movie.

  “You ride with me, Jimmy, and you will have life everlasting. Immunity to decay, to sagging muscles, to broken bones . . . to death itself. All you need to do is to come with me, now.”

  And the boy smiles and says, “Yes, doctor, I’ll do as you say.”

  And Jack Harper sits there staring at the screen and feeling his heart sink in his chest.

  41

  JACK WALKED UP and down the road in front of Faye Gregson’s place punching in Kevin’s phone number, but it didn’t come through.

  “No service. Fuck!”

  Oscar paced alongside of him.

  “Come on. We’ve got to get our asses back there now. We’ll call the playground when we get closer.”

  Faye Gregson stood on the porch, smoking and looking at them as if they were people from another planet.

  Jack looked at her standing there, all hollowed out.

  And knew, just then, without a shadow of a doubt, how she felt.

  Like him.

  Like he would keep right on feeling if anything happened to Kevin.

  They got in the car, turned on the motor, and took off , leaving a cloud of dust in their wake.

  • • •

  At Brentwood Little League, the afternoon practice was breaking up. Kevin Harper, dressed in his jeans and Angels T-shirt, was walking off the field next to Charlie. As they headed toward the car, middle-aged mom Peggy Dent came walking toward Charlie with her daughter Kathy in tow.

  “Coach,” she said. “I just wanted to thank you for the year we’ve had so far. And the way you’ve watched out for Kathy this year.”

  Ordinarily, funny and genial Charlie Breen would stop and chat, but today he barely slowed down.

  “Yeah, thanks,” he said. “I try to give all the kids time on the field. Kathy was great.”

  “Thanks, coach,” Kathy said.

  “You know, when I was a young girl, we never got a chance to develop that side of our personalities. The left side of our brain,” Peggy continued.

 
She smiled and blocked Charlie’s way, thinking he was going to stop. But Charlie moved around her, and when she moved with him, she found herself being not so gently pushed out of the way.

  “Excuse me,” she said with a shock. “You almost knocked me down.”

  “I know,” Charlie said. “Sorry. I’m in a kind of hurry.”

  He grabbed Kevin’s hand and headed for the car.

  “Well, thanks a lot!” Peggy Dent yelled. “You fat bastard!”

  Her face contorted into a mask of rage. Charlie ignored her and pulled Kevin along with him to his car.

  Charlie took a left at Ohio, right by the junior high school, and then a left into a little park adjacent to the school. He pulled over by a Dumpster and gave Kevin a worried look.

  “I think there’s something wrong with the back tire on your side. Can you look back there for me? We might have a flat.”

  “Really, Charlie?” Kevin said, smiling generously at his coach.

  “I didn’t notice anything.”

  “Just check it, will you?” Charlie said.

  Kevin was surprised by the anger and impatience in his voice. He nodded and got out of the car.

  He knelt down next to the rear tire and felt it with his hands. It felt as solid as a rock.

  “I don’t know, Charlie. It’s seems fine. It’s definitely not flat.”

  Behind him, Charlie put his huge hand around Kevin’s neck and pressed the ether-soaked rag against his nose. The boy twisted and turned, his eyes rolling wildly back in his head, but there was no escape. Within ten seconds, Kevin Harper was unconscious. Charlie picked up his limp body and pressed a button on his car key.

  The trunk door popped open and he dropped Kevin inside, then slammed the trunk closed.

  Then Roy Ayres went around to the driver’s side, got in, gunned the engine, and drove away.

  He turned on his new iPod and happily sang along with “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

  He loved the Beatles. They’d helped him get over Jimmy’s death, and now they were here for him as he avenged his son.