Only Child b-14

by Andrew Vachss

  “We got one hit,” she went on, like I hadn’t said anything. “Out of all seventy-one numbers, only one call was made to either of the Jersey numbers. It went to their house phone.”

  “When?”

  “About six weeks ago.”

  “Do you have the—?”

  “I don’t think you’re getting this,” she said. “What I did, I had...some people do a back-check. Instead of pulling all the records for seventy-one customers, they focused on matching any of those numbers with the phone records for the Jersey numbers...the two you gave me, understand?”

  “Yes,” I said, wondering how my brain had gone so numb. Grateful that Wolfe’s never did.

  “And what we found was a cluster of calls,” she said, crisp to the edge of impatience. “A pattern. Mostly from the cell, a few from the house. All to the same number in Suffolk County. And when we looked at that customer’s records, we found that single call to the house in Jersey I just told you about. Clear enough?”

  “Perfect.”

  “Not so perfect,” she said. “The calling number’s a cell phone. The customer’s name is Robert Jones. And the address is a PO box. The credit card’s a dud, too.”

  “Byron, can you do something for me? With the studio?”

  “I only paid the interest, brother.” A honeyed baritone voice on the phone. “Just say what you need.”

  “The Lloyd Segan Company. How may I direct your call?”

  “To Mr. Segan, please,” I said, pronouncing the name with the accent on the first syllable, like Byron had said to.

  “May I tell Mr. Segan who is calling?”

  “My name is Burke. I was told he’d be expecting my—”

  “Mr. Burke, yes. Hold, please.”

  A short pause, then...

  “Lloyd Segan.”

  “Mr. Segan...”

  “Lloyd.”

  “Lloyd. My name is Burke. Byron said you’d—”

  “What can I do for you?” the man said, his voice friendly with warmth and sharp-edged at the same time.

  “What I need, Lloyd, is a favor. A number someone can call, and someone to answer it, do a little routine. And some...coaching, I guess you’d call it. So I can play my role.”

  Two-thirty in the afternoon. Half past eleven in Hollywood.

  I pointed across the room, where Michelle was poised at the desk, a headset buried somewhere in her hair, only the mouthpiece at the end of the wand visible.

  She nodded, blew me a kiss, and dialed.

  I tried to hear the phone ring at the other end in my mind—we couldn’t risk putting it on speaker.

  “Good afternoon, I have Mr. Chenowith, from Acidfree Productions, for Mr. Vision.”

  ...

  “Oh, certainly, sir. We’re at area code 323....”

  “What’s he doing?” Cyn asked, pacing anxiously.

  “Checking out Acidfree Productions,” I told her. “Or getting across a border.”

  When the direct line rang, I knew Lloyd had come through. Now it was time to see how good a coach he was.

  “Acidfree Productions,” Rejji answered the bounced call.

  ...

  “Mr. Vision, is Mr. Chenowith expecting your call?”

  ...

  “Hold, please,” she said, sliding out of the chair as Michelle slid in, giving Rejji a “Nice job!” pat on the bottom.

  “Mr. Chenowith’s office,” Michelle said.

  ...

  “Oh, Mr. Vision. Thank you so much for calling. May I give you to Mr. Chenowith?”

  ...

  Michelle pointed at me. I took a centering breath, picked up the extension, said, “This is Stan Chenowith. Do I have The Vision himself?”

  Rejji dropped to her knees in front of me, hands clasped. Not playing. Praying.

  “I can get word to him,” the voice said.

  “Oh. All right. Can you tell him we would like to take a meeting with him, concerning backing one of his projects?”

  “What do you mean, backing?”

  “Well, financing, actually. I don’t know what you know about our—”

  “I know how it works,” the voice said, as if I’d offended him. “How did you...I mean, have you seen any of...the work?”

  “To be honest, I have not,” I said. “But you know how this industry works. The buzz is that The Vision is going to be very hot. And if you think the elevator’s going up, way up, the ground floor’s the best place to get on.”

  “People are talking about...the work?”

  “Oh, everybody’s talking about it. Word is, he’s on the edge. New concepts. I’ve heard Blair Witch meets Fight Club; is that outrageous? But, I have to tell you, your client isn’t the easiest man to get hold of.”

  “Where would this meeting be?”

  “That would be up to him, of course. I’m only calling now because I have to red-eye in tomorrow, and I’d hoped we could get together in the evening. But if that’s not convenient...”

  “You’d meet in New York?”

  “At the Helmsley Park Lane. On Central Park South,” I said, underlining that I was a Holy Coaster. A New Yorker would have said “Fifty-ninth Street.” “If that would be all right. It’s where I always stay.”

  “What time?”

  “Any time The Vision wants. We bring more than money to our projects. We bring flexibility.”

  “Like nine o’clock?”

  “You got it! Just have The Vision come to the front desk and ask for my suite. One of my people will come down to get him. Or would you like us to send a car...?”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay, you’ll ask The Vision?”

  “No. Okay, he’ll be there. I can...I have the authority to make commitments for him.”

  “Will you be coming, too, Mr....?”

  “Just him,” he said.

  “I was afraid you were going to lose him,” Cyn said. “Why didn’t you tell him you’d actually seen his ‘work’?”

  “Way too risky,” I told her. “Next thing, he asks me which of the tapes I’ve seen. And, in his mind, he’s wondering how I got them. Besides, it would make sense to him that the ‘word’s out’ without anyone actually seeing product.”

  “You’ve got him hooked, honey,” Michelle assured me.

  “I would have felt better if he’d let us send that car for him,” I said.

  “I know why Vonni had those tapes now. This Vision—he gave them to her. Let her in on his high-concept idea. Because he knew he had her.”

  “She wanted it,” the Prof agreed.

  “Wanted what, then?” Clarence.

  “Wanted to be a star,” Michelle put in. “Or maybe that’s not fair to her. Wanted to be in the movies, anyway. Remember, she was in the drama club....”

  “And she left that morning, she told the little boy she was going to be famous,” Cyn put in.

  “That tape? The one of her running into nowhere?” I said to them all. “I know what it was now. A rehearsal. Vision wanted her to prove she could act frightened to death. That was her role.”

  Nobody said anything.

  “That was her role,” I went on. “And right up to the end, she thought she was playing it.”

  I was connected to Vision as close as if we shared an artery. Desire and fear warring in both of us, pumping our blood. I could feel him. He wanted it to be true, a Hollywood production company discovering him, making him rich and famous. Power, spreading long sweet shapely legs for him.

  But had they really heard of him? And what had they heard?

  Come or run?

  And me? What if he didn’t show? What if I’d spooked him, given him a head start? How much money did a guy like that have? Did he already have a backup plan, a place to run to?

  The door opened. Cyn. Dressed in a black sheath. And Rejji. Nude.

  “We couldn’t sleep, either,” Cyn said.

  “No!”

  “It’ll be subtle,” Giovanni promised me. “I’ve been in plenty of
places like this before. The guys who work the desk, they’re used to a little grease.”

  “Forget it.”

  “You say we don’t know what he looks like...and that’s right. But he doesn’t know us, either. We’ll be in the lobby, just hanging. We scoped it out. The registration desk’s way over to one side; he won’t even look where we’ll be, okay? The desk man gives us the high sign, and...”

  “And what? You jump him right there, in front of fifty witnesses, minimum?”

  “Come on! I just want to—”

  “You just want to fuck this up,” I said, very quiet and calm. “One, he could send someone else. Like a point man, see if this whole thing’s for real. So we have to talk to him, see if he is, understand? Two, you pay a man for a service, doesn’t mean someone else can’t pay him, later, to talk about it. You get all anxious now, you’re going to blow it up.”

  “I’ve got to be there,” he said, adamant.

  “So you can lose it? Again? You’re putting me in a cross, Giovanni. We needed a public place to meet, the ritzier the better. You see how the joint’s laid out, how many people we’re going to need to make it work. You think you can bang a guy out in a hotel lobby in that neighborhood, and just fade?”

  “I’m not going to—”

  “You’re not going to be there, period. You said I was driving the car, remember?”

  “Burke, listen to me,” he said urgently. “He’s the one. Not the feds, him. I was blind insane to ever think it could be...but who could have ever...I...Burke, he fucking made a movie of my...”

  “The only way we’re going to know for sure is if he talks. That’s what I do. What I’m good at. You’re not. You only know the one way,” I said.

  “So?” he demanded. “You think he could—?”

  “Who are you talking to, Giovanni? Some Godfather fan? You stick a gun in a guy’s mouth, cock the trigger, maybe he spills, that’s right. And maybe he panics. Goes catatonic. Has a heart attack. Who knows? Thing is, you don’t. Nobody does.

  “And you can’t ever trust what someone says, a situation like that. He’s going to say whatever he thinks you want him to say. A nine-millimeter’s not a lie detector.

  “If all you want to do is take him off the count, you do it away from me. Far away. But you can’t even do that until you know he’s the right guy, because if you do the wrong guy this time you’ll never get another chance.”

  Giovanni bowed his head, clasped his hands, as if asking for strength. When he opened his eyes, they were clear and calm. “You be the lie detector, Burke,” he said. “Soon as you know for sure, you just ring me. I’ll be right downstairs.”

  “I’ve been with you on this?” I put it to him. “Right down the line?”

  “You have,” he said, no hesitation.

  “Then listen to me now,” I told him. “Because I’ve got a better idea.”

  “Always it is the black man who is the chauffeur,” Clarence mock-complained. Trying to lighten the fear we all shared.

  “So who should drive?” I asked him, playing along. “The Mole?”

  “Schoolboy’s telling it true,” the Prof added. “I was still doing banks, I’d rather have Ray Charles for a wheelman.”

  “Any of us could have been seen,” I said. “During all those ‘interviews’ we did. And maybe he’s got a pipeline—maybe more than a couple of those kids we spoke to were in one of his little movies. But I don’t think they were looking at anything besides the camera.”

  “Without the patch, you look very different, honey,” Michelle assured me. “And once I add those streaks to your hair, and you put on a suit...”

  “I’ve got a dynamite maid’s uniform,” Rejji said, grinning.

  “I don’t want to overload it,” I said. “The way this suite’s laid out, we can keep him isolated. And if we do have to go to Plan B, the credit card we put it all on won’t tell them anything.”

  They all nodded silently. Plan B was the Mole. In another room. On a higher floor. If he went into action, nobody was going to pay any attention to our two suites. Not with a fire raging through the hotel.

  “Do I look all right?” Michelle asked. For maybe the tenth time in the last hour.

  “You look gorgeous,” Rejji told her. “So in control. I love it.”

  “You slut.” Michelle laughed.

  I refused to look at my watch.

  The phone rang.

  Michelle started to fly across the room, stopped, smoothed her skirt over her hips, walked over, and picked it up just past the second ring.

  “Yes, please?”

  ...

  “Please tell the party that someone will be down to collect him directly. Thank you.”

  She hung up.

  “Oh God,” Rejji said.

  “Keep it together, now, bitch,” Michelle said. “You’re up next.”

  “Do you think it’s really going to be—?”

  “No more,” I told Rejji, holding my finger to my lips.

  A soft double rap at the door.

  “Danielle!” I called out.

  Rejji practically trotted over to the door. She stepped to the side as she held it open, one hand gently waving an invitation.

  He was older than I thought he’d be, from the vague descriptions we’d gathered. Late twenties, early thirties. A bit taller than medium height, light-brown hair, cut into a neat sculpture. His face was narrow, with fleshy lips over the perfect teeth the NHB girl had remembered, large dark eyes the most prominent feature. Wearing a safari jacket, with a briefcase-sized red nylon bag on a strap over his shoulder.

  Michelle stayed next to him, one hand on his arm, steering him over to me as I stood up to greet him.

  “Mr. Chenowith...The Vision,” she made the introduction.

  “Vision!” I said, extending my hand.

  He took it, returning my moderate squeeze with a firm one of his own. His palm was as dry as statistics.

  “Sit down, sit down,” I said, indicating the best chair in the room.

  “Thanks, Mr.—”

  “Stan, please. It’s me who’s honored to meet you, Vis...Can I call you ‘Vision’?”

  “Yeah, sure. It’s my...it’s my name, for professional purposes.”

  “It has real strength,” I congratulated him. “And, from what I’ve heard, it’s a perfect fit, too.”

  “You’ve never seen my work, is that right, Mr....Stan?”

  “Not a single frame of your reel,” I assured him. “But that’s...Ah, excuse me, I’m a little excited. Would you like something to drink?”

  “Sure. Whatever you’re—”

  “When you’re with us, Vision, it’s whatever you want. Danielle...”

  Rejji sashayed over, bent forward just enough to show off a little, said, “What can I get you, sir?” to him.

  “Uh...vodka rocks.”

  “Yes, sir. Is Absolut all right?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “I’ll have what The Vision is having,” I told her.

  Michelle handed me a sheaf of papers, FedEx’ed over from Lloyd’s office, tapping one spot on the top page with a red talon.

  “I don’t want to put any pressure on you,” I told him, “but I don’t want to insult you by not putting real cards on the table, either. As Alana just reminded me, we’re looking for a three-picture commitment.”

  “A three-picture...?”

  “With escalators, of course,” I assured him. “But you can understand why we don’t want to commit substantial development money to you if you’re free to just walk after the first one.”

  “But you haven’t—”

  “This isn’t about what you’ve done; it’s about what you’re going to do. Do you know what Hollywood runs on, Vision? Buzz! And you’ve got it going on. You’re all over it. The word’s out. Hot hot hot. Don’t get me wrong. We’ll want to see everything. But it’s not your reel that’s driving the car, it’s your concept, are you with me?”

  “I didn’t
realize word got out so—”

  “This business is all about high-stakes gambling. Today becomes yesterday like that!” I said, snapping my fingers. “The winning bettors are the ones who can see tomorrow.”

  Rejji put down coasters, handed us our drinks. I took out a red box of Dunhills, offered it to him. He took one, gratefully. Rejji reached in her apron, caught my slight shake of the head just in time. I wanted to see if he had his own lighter, and if a cigarette would calm him a little.

  Yes. To both.

  “So,” I said. “Tell me all about your concept.”

  “Mr. Chenowith...” Michelle, pointing to the papers.

  “All right, Alana,” I said to her. “It’s up to you,” I said to the target. “Do you want to see our offer first?”

  “Well...”

  “This is really just boilerplate,” I told him. “The blank spaces are where the numbers get filled in. I mean, some things are industry-standard, five points on the gross, separate card for the director’s credit.... You’re a writer-director, yes?”

  “Absolutely. The way I—”

  “Look, Vision, I won’t jerk you around. I’ve got a ceiling. A limit I can go to. But I promise you, promise you, that if your concept is as revolutionary as we’ve heard it is you’ll hit that ceiling. Right in this very contract. Fair enough?”

  “I...I’d have to...”

  “Well, of course, your people would have to look it over. I’m not a lawyer, either. My game’s finance; your game’s creativity. But that’s a marriage, am I right? Financing and creativity? That’s the way movies get made.”

  “But when you said Blair Witch, I thought you—”

  “You thought we were looking ultra-low-budget?” I said, in disbelief. “No way! I mean, look, I won’t deny that this is a business. We’re here to make money. But we know you have to bring some to get some. Our company can’t finance some hundred-million-dollar spectacle. And we don’t want to. We were thinking of a moderate investment. Say, two and a half to, maybe, four. All on digital.”

  “That’s...”

  “What? Not enough? Listen to me, Vision. It’s more than enough, believe me. We’ve got the distribution contacts, the overseas market—this isn’t some straight-to-video pitch I’m making here.”