Fun and Games ch-1

by Duane Swierczynski

  “She’s at Musso and Frank,” Factboy said. “Right now?”

  “Right now.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Having drinks, apparently.”

  There was a pause on the line; for a moment Factboy worried that Mann would be thinking he was playing a joke, or fucking around with her for some reason (though he’d never dare). Instead she said:

  “You know, I could kiss you.”

  And with that, the call terminated.

  Factboy’s face melted into a loose grin. It wasn’t that he relished a kiss from someone like Mann—even if she was hot, she was still scary as fuck. No, what made Factboy happy was that warm, fuzzy glow of job security, the knowledge that he’d done well, and that he could bask in it for a few minutes. When he rejoined his family at dinner, his wife was pleasantly surprised he’d returned so quickly.

  And Factboy told his kids that, yes, they could order ice cream out on the back porch after they finished their meals.

  O’Neal eased himself onto a wooden bench in the Lake Hollywood dog park. Hands and legs scraped to hell, bruising all up and down his back, head throbbing, eyes watering. What hurt most, though, was his pride. They have a word for henchmen who fuck up. And that would be… ex-henchmen. He could imagine Mann berating him. If he hadn’t gone after them solo, they wouldn’t have a van loaded with gear and sensitive information now, would they?

  As if on cue, his cell vibrated.

  Mann. “

  We’ve got approval on a budget extension. But we need to wrap this up right now. No excuses, no more mistakes.”

  “I’m fine, Mann, really, thanks for asking.”

  Mann ignored him. O’Neal supposed he should know better than to expect concern about his well-being or health. In her mind, O’Neal had fucked up.

  “I have two new team members bringing a vehicle,” Mann said. “I’ve got your position. Stay where you are. We’ll come get you.”

  “Do you even know where they are?”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  “And you’ve got a new narrative in mind?”

  “Of course.”

  At long last the waiter placed the Manhattan on the table in front of Hardie. Sparkling reddish amber, packed with fresh ice, a vision of Heaven if Hardie ever saw one. But he shocked himself by not touching it. Not until he figured out what was up with Lane, who was staring at his drink.

  “What is it? What’s wrong? I mean, besides the—well, obvious?”

  Lane picked up a fork from the table, then pressed her thumbs against it until her knuckles turned white.

  “I’m going to tell you something I haven’t told anybody.”

  “Okay.”

  “You’re not going to like it.”

  “Okay.”

  Lane told her story.

  Three years ago—January.

  They’d been goofing around in her new car, speeding down Mulholland Drive in the late afternoon. He said for a real thrill you had to do Mulholland in the dark, in the rain, going like 90 miles per hour. She told him he was ridiculous. He told her that he should drive, really show her what the car could do. The car was factory-new. Delivered yesterday. Yesterday she’d been on a shoot, the last day. The car was a present from the director. The car was a thing of high-speed beauty. She loved it, and loved that it made Blond Viking God jealous. She could tell.

  The delivery guys woke her up. The shoot had been long, grueling. She was fried to the point of not knowing what day it was, or what a normal routine felt like. This was always the case; it took a few weeks of film detox before she felt normal again. By then she’d be diving back in for her next role. Which was fine. She wanted to keep busy. She liked being busy. She’d heard a term—journeyman actor—and liked it. It meant she wouldn’t flame out quickly. She preferred to have thirty decent movies on her IMDB page than a handful of spectacular smashes and utter flameouts.

  Blond Viking God told her she was lazy; anything less than Total World Domination wasn’t worth her time.

  Blond Viking God was in a position to say something like that. Even then, three years ago, he was the Blond Viking God.

  So she received her new car and quickly showered and dressed and ate a croissant—the first breadlike food she’d had in five weeks—and poured some orange juice down her throat and went off to Blond Viking God’s place in Santa Monica. He was hung-over but immediately suggested a drink.

  She pouted a little—she’ll admit that much. She wanted to go driving around L.A. Something she used to do all the time.

  Wait until I show you Decker Canyon Road, she said.

  Fuck that, he said. Mulholland or nothing, baby!

  He had a few drinks, and then she was coerced into having a beer—again, the first booze she’d had in five weeks, since the start of the shoot. The first sip was a cold, fuzzy blast. Wow. Reluctantly, she accepted another beer, nursing it as he tossed back bourbon. He’d been on a big bourbon kick lately, having come back from shooting a gothic/science-fiction thing down in New Orleans. Bought it by the case. She hoped it was a phase; she didn’t like kissing him after a bourbon jag.

  She saw the light in his eyes go dimmer and dimmer, and she hated when that happened. He got to a certain point where it was impossible to reach him. So she said, shoes on, we’re going for a ride.

  He put his shoes on; they went for a ride.

  They didn’t go as far as Decker Canyon Road—honestly, she was afraid all the twists and turns would make him puke. And sorry, she was not cleaning Blond Viking God vomit out of her factory-new sports car. He egged her on—Mulholland, baby! Mulholland! Until finally she agreed, taking the PCH up to Sunset, then up Beverly Glen.

  Finally to Mulholland.

  He gleefully told her the story behind the name. Mulholland was a government official who was responsible for the deaths of at least 450 people—including forty-some kids—when a dam burst.

  Only in L.A., he said, would they name a road after someone like that.

  They stopped at a lookout, at which point Blond Viking God grabbed the keys.

  No.

  C’mon.

  Fuck, no. Don’t be an idiot.

  I’m fine. I just want to give it a test spin.

  And I’m saying no.

  He jingled the keys in front of her.

  Just a mile or so.

  How much bourbon did you drink?

  See you at the bottom.

  She screamed his name—

  But ultimately he won, because he always won, because he was the Blond Viking God and he raced her factory-new sports car down Mulholland Drive, yelling, NOW, THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT.

  They didn’t die.

  They didn’t hit anyone.

  Frankly, he was actually okay behind the wheel.

  And Lane had to admit, maybe she was being silly, because it was a pretty amazing ride, the cool January air making all of L.A. look crystal-clear sharp down to the molecule. And there they were, on top of everything.

  They decided to get a bite down in the valley. Somewhere quiet, out of the way. He said he knew the perfect place. They went down Beverly Glen to Ventura. Blond Viking God was confused; he knew it was here somewhere, but maybe he’d passed it. So he hooked a left onto a side street, then another left, onto another side street. I’m hungry, he said, then gunned it. He saw the kid two seconds before—chasing a Wiffle ball into the street. He slammed the brakes. The tires screamed. She screamed. None of it did any good.

  The world ended.

  Lane saw the white ball spinning, slowly making its way to the opposite curb.

  He cursed.

  He looked around.

  He cursed again.

  He put the car in reverse.

  Lane screaming, WHAT ARE YOU DOING

  He raced around the kid and rocketed the rest of the way up the street, even though doors were opening all around them.

  WE CAN’T WE CAN’T

  She looked back and saw his little body and she screamed ag
ain, but they were cut off by a hairpin turn to the right, and then everything receded into the distance.

  Hardie’s fingers touched his Manhattan, but he didn’t lift the drink from the table. He watched her as she spoke. Low tones, quiet and calm, as if she had been rehearsing this tale ever since it happened. But she wasn’t acting—there was a difference. She wasn’t becoming someone else. This was the real her, beneath everything else. Letting it all go.

  “They never caught you,” Hardie said.

  “They never caught us,” she said, “because of the Accident People.”

  He called his manager.

  His manager gave him shit right away—Lane could tell, even hearing just one side of the conversation. But Blond Viking God put the manager back in his place and made his wishes explicitly clear:

  GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF THIS.

  See, the Blond Viking God could not be wrapped up in a manslaughter trial. The Blond Viking God had a full slate, and nothing could stop that without the risk of losing a ridiculous amount of money. Even Blond Viking God’s death wouldn’t stop the production of the next six films—two of them summer tent-poles—because, by God, the money men would find a way to reanimate his fucking corpse to finish them.

  And the manager understood that.

  So the manager advised his client:

  HIDE

  And then he called the studio’s lawyers, who got word to the top, and it was deemed important enough to bring in the Accident People.

  By then Blond Viking God had taken them all the way out beyond the San Bernadinos; they were directed to a garage in Chatsworth. The car would have to be destroyed; the studio was already arranging for a duplicate to be delivered to Lane’s Venice address. They were cleaned up, given new clothes. They were told to never, ever speak of this. Because it didn’t happen. It would be erased.

  The Accident People asked the Blond Viking God for his precise route. A third car was procured—same make, same model, same color. Two actors were hired. They drove around Sherman Oaks recklessly, then disappeared.

  By seven p.m. they were having drinks at the Standard, having arrived there in Blond Viking God’s own car (which had been delivered from Santa Monica). Cameras flashed; the music was throbbing. Friends were there. They asked how it felt to have a day or two off, wow, what did you do? They told their friends what the Accident People had suggested: just fucking around all day at Lane’s place in Venice.

  Lane was quiet but compliant. She drank and tried to will her hands to STOP SHAKING.

  At the same time, the duplicate car, with stand-ins, was cruising around Studio City. The Accident People listened. The police received calls—reports of someone driving a vehicle like a maniac around their neighborhood. The hit-and-run was huge news. The victim, an eight-year-old boy, had died at the scene. The description of the car had gone out wide. Police vowed to catch these “animals.”

  The Accident People took care of the loose ends with piles of cash. The car dealer: silenced. The director: silenced—and he didn’t even need the incentive. There was no upside to having your movie’s star arrested for manslaughter.

  Lane’s hands didn’t stop shaking for days.

  Not long after, she and the Blond Viking God split. She stopped calling him, he stopped wondering if she’d call. Still, they were considered a “hot couple” by the various celebrity mags for the next nine months.

  Lane went to her manager, told him she didn’t know if she could do this. The manager said there wasn’t a choice.

  The studio threw a ton of work at her. Action movies. Something different for her. Lane thought she’d hate it. Turned out she loved it. Loved the preparation, the intensity, the physicality, the mindlessness of it all.

  She did that for two years.

  Then, about a year ago, she caught sight of a billboard for a new reality show:

  The Truth Hunters.

  It was America’s Most Wanted 2.0—a fugitive-catching show mashed together with Unsolved Mysteries and forensic supercop and cold case dramas. All of it one hundred percent true. Each installment had a single sponsor. The sponsor gave a pile of cash. The producers handpicked cases. The cash was used to reopen the investigation and get things done. Stage new forensics tests. New lab reports. New photographs. New simulations.

  Famously, the executive producer, Jonathan Hunter, did not take a dime from the show; he claimed to use every available resource to catch “people who thought they could get away with it.” He lived in the same, slightly cramped Studio City home that he and his wife, Evelyn, had purchased back in the late 1980s; the family was supported by his wife’s income. But what really touched the hearts of viewers was the fact that Jonathan Hunter knew what it was like to have an unsolved case eat away at your soul. His son Kevin had been struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver one afternoon two years before.

  Lane told Hardie:

  “We’re the ones who did it.”

  And with that billboard on Sunset Boulevard began Lane’s final descent.

  Now Lane prepared for it—the look of sheer hatred that she’d somehow managed to avoid for the past three years. The judgment, the fury, the disgust. The punishment. Boil it down and Lane realized it was just like being a kid, where the thing you fear the most is getting in trouble.

  Instead, Hardie said:

  “We should go.”

  22

  The world is divided into three classes of people:

  a very small group that makes things happen

  a somewhat larger group that watches things happen

  and the great multitude which never knows what happened.

  —Nicholas Murray Butler

  THE NAME on the cell phone display screen: DGA.

  Code for Doyle, Gedney and Abrams, the law firm that acted as the intermediary between Mann and her Industry employers. She knew the call was coming. That didn’t make answering the phone any easier.

  “This is Mann.”

  “Gedney. We see the job from earlier this morning still isn’t finished, the second job is looming. We’re worried you have too much on your plate.”

  “I can finish both.”

  “You can? Are you certain?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Same time frame?”

  “The same.”

  Never mind that DG&A gave her almost no prep time on this. Zero. Just a call last Saturday giving her the basics: two jobs, and we’d like an operational plan by the end of the day. Sure, no problem, not doing anything else, anyway. A half hour later a courier delivered two thick bio packets. One containing a full rundown on Lane Madden. The other a family of four, with the father involved in television, extremely high-profile, special treatment needed.

  Mann spent the next five hours sketching out an operational plan for the family. Their deaths couldn’t be something stupid like a gas explosion or a car wreck because of the nature of the father’s work. It needed to be logical, compelling, and absolute—no room for conspiracy theories. Mann believed she did her best work under pressure, and by the end of the brainstorming session, she was fairly proud of what she’d concocted. It would mean a lot of work behind the scenes, but it was well worth it.

  Planning the Lane Madden job, on the other hand, took about five minutes.

  After speeding through the bio materials DG&A had sent, Mann decided on a Sleeping Beauty. Actors were usually easy, and Lane Madden’s recent career highlights made it even easier.

  Three years ago she’d been involved in a hit-and-run accident. Doyle, Gedney and Abrams had hired a director to wipe it from existence. Madden was sworn to secrecy.

  After two years of roles in back-to-back action blockbusters—some that performed okay, the rest abysmal bombs—Madden cracked. An arrest on drug-related charges. A failed stint in a drug-treatment program was followed by another arrest, this time for drunk-and-disorderly behavior. While on bail, Madden was arrested on still another drug charge when her room at the Fairmont Miramar was searched follo
wing an anonymous 911 tip. Thanks to California Prop 36, she was given probation instead of jail time. She was also forced to wear an alcohol-and-drug-monitoring bracelet.

  (Mann couldn’t help but smile at that one. It made her even easier to track.)

  After that final indignity, reported pretty much everywhere—and with much gusto—Lane appeared to find Jesus. She cleaned up. The press hounded her, but the new Lane appeared to be the real thing. Rumor had it she was seeing someone, but nobody could pin down a name or a face. For the past three months, no lapses, no arrests. And then, just last week, there was a job offer, her first in a year, and not a stupid action movie. A serious role, portraying a single mother in an adaptation of the bestselling novel Blood Will Out. Things looked up for Lane Madden.

  And now she had to die.

  Because while she may have found Jesus, she’d also discovered a penchant for confession. The past three years had been a living hell for her, she told her new boyfriend, composer Andrew Lowenbruck. She’d thrown herself into work for nearly two years straight, appearing in pretty much everything her manager could dig up for her. As long as she was working, she didn’t care what it was. But then she saw that Truth Hunters billboard; something in her snapped. The drinking started shortly thereafter in a hotel room, first with two mini-bottles of vodka, followed by two mini-bottles of rum, followed by a small bottle of white wine, followed by a room-service order of a salad with lite Caesar dressing and two bottles of Grey Goose. And then finally a phone call to an old connection, and down she went, right into the scandal sites and entertainment mags.

  Was anybody really going to question her overdosing after a party late one California night?

  Not even her manager would blink. (That is, if her manager weren’t already beholden to Doyle, Gedney—client loyalty was one thing, but agency loyalty was another.)