The Fourth Wall

by Williams, Walter Jon

  Joey never changed the registration after Timmi died, he just kept paying the registration and the insurance. Just as I’d done with my mother’s Mercedes.

  I look at the time: it’s just after five-thirty. I have a seven o’clock makeup call, so there’s no point in going back to bed. As I shower and put on my clothes I try to figure out what it is I’ve just learned.

  It was Joey who killed Jaydee and Nataliya: he killed them with his wife’s van, which he probably considered poetic justice.

  After I told Dagmar and Richard about my theory at the Joli Blon, they realized that Joey was a threat to the production. He couldn’t be allowed to continue, but they had no evidence against him. And so Sri’s super-ninja assassins were dispatched, and so was Joey.

  I restrain myself from telling anyone about any of this until I’m in Astin’s Expedition, heading for the studio, and then I call the two detectives who interviewed me after Joey’s death. The Asian guy’s phone goes to voice mail, and I leave a message telling him to call me. I call the woman who chews nicotine gum, and she answers right away.

  “What is it?” she asks.

  “This is Sean Makin,” I tell her. “I’m calling about—”

  “Who are you again?” she asks.

  So much for my international stardom. I explain who I am and my connection to one of her cases. Then I explain about the white Grand Caravan that Joey never transferred to his own name.

  “If you find that car,” I say, “you’ll find the vehicle that killed Jaydee Martin and Nataliya Hogan. Joey owned a lot of cars, and he might not have kept this one at his house. But if you find the warehouse—”

  “We’re looking at someone else for those murders,” she says.

  “Melody Chastain had no motive for those killings.”

  She barks a laugh. “So far as we can tell, she has no motive for trying to kill you.”

  Touché, I think. “Does Melody Chastain have a white Grand Caravan?” I ask.

  There’s a moment of silence. “We’ll check into it.”

  “Sorry to spoil your Sunday morning,” I say.

  “It was spoiled hours ago,” she says sourly, and pops her gum in my ear.

  I hang up and call Richard. For all I know, he might have just been listening to my phone call, but I’ve got one question I need him to answer.

  “This is Richard,” he answers. For the first time since I’ve known him, he sounds tired.

  “How’s Dagmar?” I ask.

  “Fine. She’s out of danger, and so is her little girl. They’re both sleeping.”

  “I just found out something.” I tell him about Timmi’s Grand Caravan. “So it looks as if Joey really did those hit-and-runs,” I tell him. “But there’s one question unresolved.”

  “Joey’s phone call,” Richard says. He sounds a lot less sleepy now. “The one he made from Bel Air at the time that Nataliya was being killed at her beach house.”

  “Can you chain cell phone signals together?” I ask. “Can you call from the Pacific Coast Highway to Joey’s house in Bel Air, and then have a device in Bel Air relay the call to its destination? Like Trishula was doing with his distributed network, but for telephone instead of Internet?”

  “Yes,” Richard says. “It would be relatively easy, I suppose. But what you’re really asking is whether it was done in this instance.”

  “Yes,” I say. “That’s what I’m asking.”

  “I’ll try to find out.”

  “Thanks.”

  Though if Richard was part of the conspiracy to kill Joey on behalf of Dagmar and Sri, there’s not a lot I’ve told him that he doesn’t already know. But maybe it will salve his conscience to know that Joey actually did kill two people before he and Dagmar took him down.

  Assuming of course that he has a conscience, always a crucial question in our particular line of work.

  Astin looks at me in the rearview mirror. “That was unusual. Are you turning detective or something?”

  “Someone’s got to,” I tell him. “And I’m the one people keep trying to kill.”

  Astin nods his shaven head. “Good point. If I can help in any way…?”

  “Just keep me alive.”

  Astin nods again. “That’s what I’m here for.”

  I call a florist and order a large bouquet for Dagmar’s room at Valley Presbyterian, which I hope may soften her in the matter of having me whacked, and then I go in for makeup. When I’m done, and I go onto the soundstage, I see Carter-Ann talking to Tessa Brettel.

  I walk toward them. When Carter-Ann turns toward me, I ask her about the psychiatric conference.

  “It went very well. Thank you.” Carter-Ann is bright and chirpy this morning, and wears a jacket with a plush gathered collar over one of her usual frilly blouses. She looks like a fashionable sorceress in an online fantasy game.

  “Have you seen Dagmar?”

  “Just briefly, when she got out of surgery. She wasn’t functioning very well, as you can imagine.”

  “Indeed.”

  “She’ll be much better today. I’ll call her when shooting is over.”

  “Give her my regards,” I say.

  “Waiting on gaffers,” Clarke calls.

  “I’m going to get Roger’s ass over here,” Tessa tells me. “And then we’ll talk about this scene.”

  The scene goes extremely well. It’s the last scene in the movie, in which Roheen has got the wounded Khabane to a clinic and had him patched up. It’s very close to the scene as originally shot, except that this time it’s Khabane in the bed and not Roheen. It’s a melancholy scene, with Roheen’s mission having failed, his friend having been wounded, and his home world a swiftly receding dream.

  The trick, as an actor, is to get just the right amount of hope into the scene. Though Roheen’s failed, he’s changed for the better, he’s traveled rough and learned a lot, he’s found internal resources he didn’t know he had…he’s also made new friends who have become important to him, and found a new calling. The audience has to see that.

  I can’t overplay it, because then it will just be this chirping-birds-and-singing-flowers Disney ending, and that’s not what we’re after. Roheen’s become very real to me after all this time, and I want to send him out on just the right note.

  Roger is behaving for once, I think because he realizes this is the last day and he wants to get it over with and get back to his vacation. Tessa keeps having to slow him down and remind him why he’s here. Still, this is a minor annoyance compared to his behavior in the past, and I’m so focused on my own part that I barely notice it.

  The experience is so intense that I lose track of time. It’s slightly after noon when Tessa calls for the last cut, and I stand up out of my trance and look around. The crew is applauding, and for a moment I’m not sure whom they’re cheering for, and then I realize it’s me.

  I stand there stunned, and then Tessa walks onto the set and gives me a hug. I hug her back, and I wave and smile at the applauding people.

  I didn’t get applause the first time we shot the ending.

  I want this feeling to go on as long as possible, so I delay leaving the soundstage until it’s clear that everyone else just wants to pack up and go home to enjoy their Sunday. There won’t be a wrap party, because we already had one. For a moment I consider inviting everyone to join me at Dove Bar at ten o’clock, but then I realize I’m nearly staggering with weariness, and that what I really need is about ten hours’ sleep. I say goodbye to everyone who’s still around, and then I leave the soundstage and find Astin waiting for me outside. Normally my guards let me walk around the lot unescorted, but now he’s sticking to my elbow.

  “You said to keep you alive, man,” he says.

  “I appreciate it,” I say.

  There will be more looping, I assume, in the next couple days, and then my part of Escape to Earth will be over, everything except various appearances and promotions to help sell the film, and myself, to the public.

 
; I go to my dressing room in the Bennett Building, and the makeup artist’s assistant removes Roheen from my skin. I stick my head out the dressing room door to tell Astin to bring the car around.

  Then I change out of my costume, which I hang up in my dressing room for the costumers who will collect it, and put my own clothes on. I’m tying my Nikes when there’s a knock on the dressing room door.

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s me, Mr. Makin.” I recognize the voice of Carter-Ann’s blond assistant.

  I open the door, and he takes a step inside and swings a pipe for my head.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  FROM: Farzana16

  Did you see that Samendra’s making a personal appearance at the Electronic Superstore in Model Town on Saturday?

  FROM: Danishri

  I am absolutely going!

  FROM: Farzana16

  We should go early. There will be a long line.

  FROM: Danishri

  WE LOVE YOU SAMENDRA!!!

  INT. SEAN’S DRESSING ROOM—DAY

  Hell, I don’t even know the man’s name, and here he is trying to kill me.

  I don’t think he’s quite prepared for how tall I am. He’s aiming for my temple, but he has to reach up so far that the tip of the pipe hits the top of the metal door frame with a clang. This only delays the strike by a fraction of a second, but it’s just enough—I give a startled blind leap away from him and bat the pipe away as it bounds off the door frame. He scrambles after me, swinging, the pipe hissing as it comes within a millimeter of my face.

  I poke him in the face with my left fist, but that barely slows him down—it’s Jimmy Blogjoy all over again. I duck another wild swing. There’s a smashing sound as the pipe connects with my makeup mirror.

  The thought of Blogjoy sets me in a fury, rage mixed with terror, and I punch all-out with my right. The punch connects with his cheek and knocks him back. The pipe comes up again and whangs my left forearm, and the shock of pain keeps me from following up my successful strike.

  I take a couple steps and put my makeup chair between us. It’s a heavy padded swivel chair, like a barber’s chair, and I think about picking it up and trying to use it as a weapon, but it’s very heavy and I don’t know if I’m strong enough.

  We stare at each other over the chair and we both reassess. My heart is throbbing so fast and hard that it seems like it’s bounding free inside my rib cage, rattling my bones with every beat. The eyes in the blond man’s pale face are dead, like the eyes of a shark. His lips are drawn back from his teeth in a silent snarl.

  It’s a small room, maybe twelve feet by fifteen. The dressing room behind me is smaller, but it doesn’t have a door, only a curtain, so I can’t keep him out.

  I’ve had my panic button for weeks, the one that will summon aid, but I wasn’t wearing it when I was in costume, and I haven’t put it on yet. It sits on the makeup table, next to my phone. Apparently the only way I’m going to get help is to shout for it.

  “Help!” I call. “Help me!”

  Except it’s Sunday afternoon, and I’m in an office building where everyone’s gone home. If I were on the set, or if this were happening in my old trailer, someone would probably hear me, but here it’s unlikely.

  When I yell the blond man lunges around the chair to my right, to keep between me and the door to the outside. My martial reflexes are coming back and I kick him, just like I kicked Trishula outside the Joli Blon, but the kick glances off his hip. It doesn’t knock him down, but it’s enough to unbalance him and stop his forward momentum, and his strike with the pipe cuts the air between us but doesn’t hit anything.

  We stare at each other and pant for breath. I call for help again. And then a woman screams.

  It’s the ring tone from my cell phone that sits on my makeup table, but the blond man doesn’t know that, and he gives a start and looks wildly for the source of the scream. So that’s when I go for him, while he’s distracted.

  I throw a wild block to his forearm as I charge, intending to intercept the swing that I know he’s going to throw. The pain and shock of bone on bone makes me glad I hit the forearm instead of the pipe. Then I smash into him with all my weight and bear him backward. I drive him into the door frame behind him, and I see a start of surprise on his face. Surprise and, perhaps, a dawning fear.

  I’m inside the range of his weapon now. There’s not a lot of harm he can do with it without room to swing.

  I’m screaming with rage. Adrenaline is playing like a blowtorch on my nerves. Three months of paranoia, fear, and suspicion are resolving themselves into shrieking fury now that I finally have something in front of me to attack. My left forearm has his right shoulder pinned against the door so that he can’t swing the pipe, and my right fist is pumping a series of short, vicious punches into his floating ribs. I head-butt him hard enough so that I see stars. I take a step back, then drive a rising knee into his midsection.

  Gasping for air, he hurls himself forward against me, his arms wrapping me, holding me close. I can smell the herbal scent of his shampoo. I totter under our combined weight and try to throw the knee again, but taking one foot off the ground is a mistake because it unbalances me. We lurch around our common center of gravity like drunken tango dancers, and then I trip and fall. I carom off the makeup chair, the impact knocking the wind out of me, and then we’re both lying on the ground on our sides, facing each other, my arms still around him.

  I throw a few punches into his back, and he flaps at me with the hand that’s holding the pipe, but there’s no way to get proper distance and leverage, and neither of us is doing any damage. He tries to lever himself up in order to get enough room to swing, but I stick to him like a piece of cling wrap. He twists within my embrace in order to get both hands on the ground to push himself up; and then even in the midst of my fury and terror I feel a species of relief floating through my mind, because I know that he’s just made a serious mistake.

  In mixed martial arts it’s called “giving your back.” It’s what happened with me and Jimmy Blogjoy, when I fell and he pounced on my back and began pounding me and driving me into the cottage cheese.

  Now the blond man’s turned partially away from me, and I wrench myself off the floor and pounce on his back with all my weight. He levers himself up on hands and knees, but I’m clinging like a limpet and he doesn’t have anyplace to go. My forearm is trying to snake around his throat. My legs are wrapping his legs. I can hear him gasping for breath as he fights against our combined weight. I’m still screaming, shouting aloud with every exhalation.

  He tries to reach over his left shoulder with his right arm and stab me with the pipe. I duck, my head digging into the gap between his right shoulder and head. My right hand reaches around his body to grab his right forearm and pin it in place. My left hand grabs the pipe and tries to wrench it free. He begins to totter.

  The only way he can keep his balance is to let go of his weapon and plant his right hand back on the floor, but he won’t surrender the pipe, so we both fall to the right and land heavily on the dressing room floor. My legs wrap around his thighs and render both his legs useless. I grab my right wrist with my left hand and begin to squeeze.

  It’s called an arm triangle choke. I’m squeezing his right arm, right shoulder, and neck all together, with my right forearm cutting into the side of the neck. If I squeeze hard enough, the soft parts—like the throat, and the carotid artery—will collapse. The blond feels the choke start to bite and he begins to fight it, shooting his right arm up in an effort to buy himself a little extra room within the circle of my arms; but that’s the wrong thing to do, because that just lets me cinch him tighter. Now his right hand is trapped high over his head and he can’t use the pipe at all.

  He begins to flail, and his desperation seems to vastly increase his strength. His legs are thrashing and his left hand is pounding my thigh, which is the only part of me he can reach. Jolts of pain shoot up my leg and hip. His legs escape me and I have
to keep hooking them with my feet. All this thrashing makes my choke slip, and gives the blond a chance to gasp for air; but I never let go, and I always clamp down again.

  He kicks. He arches his back to try to get me off him. He hits me on the thigh so many times that I’m afraid he’s smashed the bone to fragments. I hang on to the choke, working every chance I get to tighten the circle of my arms. The pipe flails over my head, thumps the floor and whangs off the base of the chair, but it’s no threat to me now.

  Then he goes limp, and it’s so sudden that I figure he’s shamming. I use his sudden passivity to improve my position and squeeze even harder. I can smell the sour sweat on his neck. I’m still shouting for help.

  After a while I stop shouting because my own vision is turning black. I can’t seem to get enough air even though I’m not the one being strangled. My back hurts, my head hurts. My thigh hurts where he’s pounded it.

  There’s a limp man partly on top of me, and all I can think to do is hang on.

  Eventually it occurs to me that the blond really isn’t faking it, and I cautiously relax my hold. The man doesn’t spring back to life. I slowly relax the triangle choke and reach up above my head to take the pipe. Now I have his weapon.

  I work myself out from beneath the limp body. I kneel near him, the pipe poised to hit him if he starts to move. But he doesn’t move, he just lies palely on the carpet, his blond hair untidy as a heap of straw. His eyes, staring vaguely at the door, are blood-red. I give a shudder. I didn’t know that could happen.

  I grab the arm of the chair and heave myself upright. A bolt of pain shoots through my left thigh where the blond man pounded on it. For a moment I almost topple, and then I swivel the chair around and sit and try to catch my breath. My heart is still crashing in my chest like an engine with the throttle jammed wide open.

  I begin to laugh as a mad rush of euphoria hits my veins. I’m alive! I’m the champion! I took down Dagmar’s assassin!