Margin of Error

by Edna Buchanan

  “Isn’t everybody?”

  “You sound so cynical. I hate seeing you involved with them.”

  “Funny, they say the same thing about you.”

  “I don’t doubt it.” I laughed and worked my stiff shoulder muscles. “How’s the moviemaking coming along?”

  He sighed. “Problems.”

  “Any word from Stephanie?”

  “She’s not in the house at the moment, I hope. But she sent some tapes and a video.”

  “You’re kidding. What’s on them?”

  “Music, poetry. Haven’t heard ‘em myself. Niko and the guys are going through them, just in case there’s something in there we need to know about.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Send them to my lawyers, see what they say.”

  “What about her family?”

  “They say they don’t know where she is.”

  “No return address on the tapes?”

  “No, or we woulda sent them back unopened. Hey, any chance you’d meet us, some of the crew and me, for a drink later?”

  What did he really have in mind?

  “I don’t usually hang out with actors,” I said lamely.

  “I never hang out with reporters.” When I didn’t answer, he said, “Think about it. We’ll be at Smash, in the VIP room. I’ll leave word at the door.”

  I cleaned off my desk, went home, walked Bitsy, then daubed on black mascara and hot pink lipstick and careened east. Skate punk reigned over the pastel neon of South Beach, boom boxes blasting as ‘bladers and ‘boarders hurdled makeshift ramps and garbage cans.

  I reluctantly relinquished my keys to the valet, taking a fond last look at my T-Bird, aware it could be aboard a freighter bound for Port au Prince within the hour. With all its power, the U.S. government is totally unable to block illegal traffic: stolen cars streaming out, illegal aliens pouring in.

  The brick-red sidewalks outside Smash vibrated with the sounds from within. To my surprise, the doorman discovered my name on his clipboard.

  I had never been to the VIP room before. In fact I had never been to Smash, or Grab, the adjacent restaurant. They are among the ever-evolving South Beach enterprises, catering to the “beautiful people,” those into body piercing, tattoos, and leather. An Adonis-like man smiled and I smiled back before realizing that he was wearing what appeared to be skin-tight leather trousers without a crotch. Frenzied dancers were being driven to a fevered pitch by pounding metallic music. Partners were moshing, thrash-dancing that resembled violent shoving matches. Solo dancers bounced endlessly as the band blasted their brains into Swiss cheese. Earplugs were probably considered uncool, I thought wistfully.

  The secluded VIP room offered some refuge from the sonic assault. The stylish Victorian nook was adorned with stunning models, both male and female, red plush couches, mood lighting, and a voyeur’s view of the floor below.

  Niko was watching the crowd, listening to the music, his back to the wall. He saw me first, caught my attention, and steered me to Lance, who was sequestered at a table with several people and surrounded by a phalanx of muscle. His small group appeared unaware of the rampant dementia below.

  Phillip Hodges looked out of place, pale, serious, and artistic, hair in his eyes. He and Lance were in deep conversation with three other men. One was dressed like Niko, entirely in black. A scar zigzagged like a lightning bolt down the right side of his face, ending in a split at his lower lip, and his skin looked tanned and hard. Next to him sat a pleasantly pudgy fellow with hair receding in front, long in back. A gold earring dangled from one lobe, and he wore black nail polish—either that or he had recently slammed all his fingers in a car door. He was introduced as Ziff Bodine, special effects and makeup; the face with the scar belonged to stuntman Trent Talon.

  Third in the group was assistant director Rad Johnson. Bearded, intense, and in his thirties, he wore a little red scarf knotted jauntily around his neck, like the one sometimes worn by Pulitzer, Lottie’s rescued greyhound. I didn’t like the way Johnson studied everything but my face. Lottie’s dog displays more character and honesty in his eyes.

  All were helping themselves from bottles of Chivas Regal and Jack Daniel’s on the table and a magnum of Dom Pérignon chilling in an ice bucket. “Great bone structure, look at those fabu cheekbones!” Bodine splashed champagne into my glass. “You’re Scandinavian?”

  “Only by first name. My father was Cuban, my mother’s people were Miami pioneers, English ancestry.”

  “Cuban! Get outa town!”

  Talon exuded the edgy tension and had the crazy eyes seen in both the best undercover cops and the most dangerous criminals. The risk takers. No surprise when Lance called him the best stuntman in the business. “You should see this guy work,” he told me. “He jumps outa tall buildings, crashes cars, runs through fire, gets blown up and blown away.”

  “Not often enough,” Talon muttered over the rim of his glass. The split in his lower lip transformed into a giant dimple when he smiled. “Lance hates seeing me make a living. He likes to do his own stunts.”

  “I wanna share the fun.” Lance looked casual, no sign of a meaningful glance or lascivious stare. I felt relieved.

  Hodges appeared to be brooding.

  I asked him how work was progressing.

  “Trouble,” he intoned morosely, sipping his scotch. “The worst is the bloody nuclear reactor. My God, the thing keeps sinking in the muck. Our crew’s the best. They’ve done everything to shore it up. It’s already cost more than three times the budget for the damn thing, and it isn’t right yet. Van Ness was apoplectic this afternoon. You should have heard Wendy.”

  “No way to locate it someplace else?” I sampled my champagne.

  “It’s our most elaborate set,” Johnson said sarcastically, as though addressing a simpleminded child. “The whole story line revolves around it.”

  “At least the story line as we knew it.” Hodges glanced meaningfully at the others. Script revisions were apparently still under way, at the producers’ orders.

  “Yeah, for all we know,” Lance said, exhaling smoke, “we won’t even need the reactor. This movie may wind up being Supermodel Saves Miami.”

  “We lost a backhoe this afternoon,” Hodges lamented into his drink. “Damn expensive piece of equipment, just disappeared into that miserable, muddy swamp, and one of our crew wound up with a nasty compound fracture, had to move him to higher ground on an airboat, then fly him out by chopper.”

  I resisted the urge to whip out my notebook. They had already made it clear that shop talk was off the record.

  “The damn location scout said the area would be perfect. We went crazy getting all those permits,” Hodges said bitterly.

  “Not a good idea to mess with the Everglades,” I said. Lance watched me, smoking, eyes hooded. “It’s a strange, ancient, mystical place. The ‘Glades are like nowhere else. Full of old Indian burial grounds. Primeval. Weird. Inexplicable things happen out there. That’s the swamp that swallowed a DC Nine, and all hundred and ten people aboard. Remember? They searched for weeks and never found a single body.”

  “Get outa town.” Ziff’s eyes were bright.

  They all stared at one another.

  “Sorry.” I shrugged. The champagne was great. The only one taking hits from that bottle, I was beginning to enjoy myself.

  “We should have the ‘Glades whipped by tomorrow,” Hodges said hopefully. “We’re constructing platforms.”

  “Damn straight. We built the whole goddam Sahara in Arizona for Sandstorm.” Johnson shoved his red face at mine.

  “That must have been like building a swamp in the Everglades,” I said.

  “Or a mountain in the Himalayas,” Lance said. We exchanged smiles as Johnson poured himself another drink, sloshing some on the table.

  “I love it.” Ziff shivered with delight and refilled my glass. “Tell us more scary stories about the Everglades.
”

  “She could help with that other thing,” Lance offered.

  “Right,” Ziff said. “We have this scene. What exactly would the chunks look like when somebody’s brain”—he shuddered delicately and gestured with both hands, dark nails agleam—”sort of explodes?”

  What was the cocktail conversation like at the other VIP room tables? I wondered, trying to recall the last time I had seen spattered brains.

  “Depends how big the pieces are. I got one on my shoe once … A bit like dissected shrimp, only a bit grayer.” I waved away the untimely offer of an hors d’oeuvre.

  “Good, good.” Ziff scribbled in a small notebook.

  Talon had wandered to another table for a few words with a platinum blonde in a black leather bustier.

  “What a town, what a town.” Lance looked relaxed, moving to the music. Behind us, a couple necked feverishly on a couch. They were both guys. I saw somebody snorting coke down on the dance floor. The man in the crotchless leather pants had scaled the stage. He did a swan dive and was crowd surfing passed like a volleyball above a sea of hands.

  Lance leaned in my direction to watch.

  “Did you know,” I said in his ear, “that Hodges called my editor to ask that I hang with the crew while you’re shooting?”

  “No.” His eyes remained focused on the scene below. “Your name came up at a meeting and I suggested that you could probably give us some valuable advice, but it wasn’t my idea.”

  The din below increased in volume, the revelers apparently intent on partying until they puked. Niko shot an uneasy glance our way as Lance stood and stretched.

  “Let’s split.” Lance nodded toward Niko, who picked up the signal.

  I was relieved; the champagne had made me giddy. Hodges and Lance were ready to call it a night. So was I. But Ziff, Johnson, and Trent were all for forging on, to a popular new spot featuring cybersex, where customers in comfortable armchairs in front of personal computers indulge in sex with electronic partners. Earphones amplify every sound and headsets make the graphics and action seem real.

  Since I was the native they asked my advice, assuming I knew all these places intimately, that my life was an endless round of South Beach party scenes.

  “It is safe sex,” I said helpfully. “Or you could go to TNT, WOW, or Crescendo.”

  We swept out of Smash, surrounded by a flying wedge of muscle. A few dancers shouted out Lance’s name and he waved. For a millisecond, a face in the crowd caught my eye, but when I turned to look, she was gone. Could it have been? No one else in our group reacted. Had she been there, they surely would have seen her. I had been drinking and my eyes were playing tricks on me, I decided. Smash was full of long-haired women. It couldn’t have been Stephanie.

  Lance and I stood close, our first moment alone, in a secluded doorway shielded by the others as Niko called up the cars.

  “You took advantage of me,” he said quietly, his voice deep and intimate.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Maybe you forgot.” He shrugged. “I guess I wasn’t that memorable.” His questioning eyes caught mine.

  I felt dizzy, the soft night, the champagne on an empty stomach. I swallowed. He squinted. “Are you all right to drive?”

  I took a deep breath.

  “We’re gonna walk a little,” he announced aloud.

  Niko looked pained but was game.

  We walked. Niko forged ahead, discreetly out of earshot. Al and Dave trailed discreetly behind us, several feet apart. The Town Car, Frank at the wheel, rolled alongside at minus five miles an hour. Like characters out of a big-screen gangster epic we, and our bodyguards, strolled past stout-hearted drag queens, tourists, and outlaw kids roving like jackals through a neon apocalypse. Surreal.

  For sure, I told myself, we would not be mugged. Window shopping might be fun, I thought, but then glanced into the shop we were passing. Condomania. A window display featuring glow-in-the-dark condoms, a body-sized prophylactic, and a bouquet of inflated condoms molded to look like flowers. Thank God, I thought, that the Design Review Board had refused them permission to erect their four-foot neon logo.

  I tried to focus on Lance. He was talking about work, my work. “I’m really into it,” he was saying. “If I could just be anonymous and take a year off to try something else, I would like to be a reporter, or even a news photographer.”

  “You would not be impressed by the editors, the pay scale, or the benefits,” I said. “So, you’ve worked with Ziff, Trent, and Rad before?” I giggled. “Ziff, Trent, and Rad. Sounds like the Seven Dwarfs.”

  “No,” he said patiently. “No resemblance to Grumpy, Doc, and Sleepy. Ziff is great, started in makeup, moved into special effects. Aged me thirty years in two hours for Ground Zero. Of course,” he added, “Lexie could do that in twenty minutes. And Trent? The man moves so fast he could play Ping-Pong against himself. Best in the business.”

  We loitered at the rim of a sandy beach, watching the nearly full moon climb a charcoal-clouded sky over the Atlantic. The few lights in the darkness winked from freighters far out at sea. Ocean, moon, and endless sky. The moment might have been romantic, had it not been for Niko, Frank, Al, and Dave.

  I began to laugh and could not stop.

  “That’s it.” Lance looked stern. “You’re not driving home.”

  Niko drove, Frank following in my T-Bird.

  The two rows of small garden apartments were bathed in darkness except for the security light Mr. Goldstein had installed.

  Lance strolled with me to the door. “So this is your place.” He looked around as I inserted the key.

  “It’s been fun,” I said.

  “C’mere, babe,” he coaxed, tucking his big fist under my chin. “I won’t bite you, unless you want to be bit.”

  “No biting,” I said flatly. I knew where that could lead, still embarrassed about that episode. And what would become of Niko, Frank, Dave, and Al, waiting out by the curb? “You either,” I warned Bitsy, who had scampered out and was scrambling crazily around our feet. I kissed Lance on the cheek, went inside, and peeped back out.

  If Mrs. Goldstein was watching me come home, she got her money’s worth this time, I thought, as the security light illuminated the famous Lance Westfell’s departing profile.

  From shadow behind the curtain I saw the Town Car pull away. I was still watching as another car rolled by slowly. Looked like a Taurus. Red, I thought, impossible to be sure in the dark. Some odd instinct rooted me in place. Shortly, in the time it took to circle the block, the same car rolled by again. Someone looking for an address? Probably a late-night pizza delivery for some insomniac with the munchies. I left the window, took Bitsy’s leash off the hook behind the door, snapped it to her collar, and stepped outside.

  The night was clear and cool, even a bit chilly. As I locked the door behind me, footsteps rapidly retreated. Bitsy heard them, too, and alerted. A car door opened, then closed, just out of sight.

  Curious, I followed the sounds out to the street. The Taurus idled, double-parked at an odd angle. Looked like a woman behind the wheel. My natural instinct was to approach the car and see who it was, but something made me hesitate. Suddenly the driver hit the gas, peeled out, and raced down the dark street, burning rubber.

  I turned, took Bitsy inside, and double-locked the door behind us.

  10

  This time I was not alone in that dark woods at the mercy of the man who wanted me dead; weeping children crept through the shadows. Twice, I awoke, and in a fugue state of half-sleep reached for the gun beneath my pillow. But the touch of cold steel offered no comfort, only served to make my dream more real. This is dangerous, an inner voice whispered as I struggled to determine whether I was awake or sleeping. The gun frightened me, but I was so much more frightened without it.

  Awake and lucid, I revisited my three hard-and-fast rules about owning a gun: Know how to use the weapon, know when it is legal to use it,
and, most important, be psychologically ready to do so. I lay awake in the dark, listening to the night and remembering people I knew, including two police officers, whose hesitation cost them their weapons and their lives. For the first time, I understood.

  The Oliver children haunted my day. My champagne hangover didn’t help. It felt as though a Cuban terrorist had exploded a car bomb inside my skull. I was lucky that my beat was relatively quiet. By afternoon I was ready for another shot at Angel Oliver. Her beef was that the press had never reported her side, only the charges against her. If I promised to tell her side, whatever that was, she might be tempted.

  What self-serving statements could she offer, what excuse could she have? Who else could be to blame? She had starved her baby, for God’s sake. And whatever her feud with Darnell, how could she justify shutting him out of their children’s lives? I felt the absence of my father, executed by a Castro firing squad when I was three, every day of my life. Every child is entitled to a dad, especially one who cares and wants to be part of the picture.

  I took two aspirins, told the desk where I was going and drove to Angel Oliver’s apartment. It was already after four and the children should be home from school. Chances were she’d be there.

  I drove across the river and past the gates of the Orange Bowl. The neighborhood, aging buildings with few shade trees, looked grubbier than ever, in contrast with the pristine and well-kept stadium, padlocked and waiting for the big game that will never be played inside its walls.

  I knocked; again the sounds of child’s play abated. This time the door inched open just a crack. “Mommy?”

  Heck, I thought, she isn’t here. Harry peered up at me.

  “Mommy’s not home,” he said, quickly adding that she would be. Soon.

  True, or what he had been coached to say if a nosy social worker showed up?

  He closed the door firmly. Good boy, I thought. Never let a stranger in the house, ever. I sat in the T-Bird parked across the street, on an angle, debating whether to wait or leave a note. Hopefully, she would be home soon. She was probably out shuffling the banana. The afternoon sun beat down unmercifully, and the car became unbearably hot with the windows up. Sweaty and sleepy, head throbbing, I yearned for crank windows that I could roll down without starting the car. Impossible to find a late-model car without push-button windows these days. My objection is that they do not perform well underwater; they short-circuit, trapping people inside submerged cars. Happens all the time in this seaside community, crisscrossed by waterways, bridges, and the world’s worst drivers.