by Joe Connelly
A voice on King’s walkie-talkie screamed “Rolling,” and from up the street the sirens started. “Come on,” King put his arm around Don’s shoulders, steering him around the corner as the voice on his radio screamed “Action,” the cop cars skidding by.
“I missed a couple of calls,” Don said.
“Oh man, you missing calls. I don’t know what Hammamann charges for that. That’s why I’m saying you got to stay ahead. The key word in this business is action, not reaction. Like when you started running back there, total reaction. I’m not even charging you for this information.”
King had two earrings in his left nostril and a small sword through his eyebrow, and with the shaved head, that eye patch, he looked exactly like what he was, a pimp, a bully, and an informer. They turned onto a street lined with campers, and King stopped between two. “Now get off my set,” he said, and punched Don hard in the stomach. Don never saw it coming, only leaving, and the need to bend over.
King jumped back, punching at the air. “You feel soft, man. Joint made you a big guppy, huh. I’m the king here; that’s all you need to know, and I’m telling you this right now. Stay the fuck off my set.”
Don straightened himself against the trailer and stared at King, who pulled aside his jacket to show the revolver on his hip, “Be cool,” King said, but Don was already there, one hand on the cylinder, the other pulling out the plastic gun, pushing it into King’s chin. “Action. Reaction,” Don said, pulling the gun out of King’s hand, punching him in the face.
“King, is that you?” The door to the trailer opened, and a woman appeared, another blond police captain, this one wielding a black phone. “Where have you been, King, and what happened to lunch? It’s two o’clock.”
King sat on his knees on the sidewalk. He lifted his head, “I’ll send someone, Dyan,” watching for where Don had pocketed the gun. “One minute.”
She came down the steps, “I have a close-up coming up I’m trying to get ready for, and everybody’s eaten already. My stand-in gets more food than me and she’s tied up all day.”
“All right, Dyan. You don’t worry. Go inside and let me take care of it.”
“Dammit,” she yelled, “I’m not dead yet.” She pointed her phone at his chest. “Now please go do it, and get me a cigarette.”
Don and the woman watched King go. She turned to him, her head coming up to his shoulder, the gold badge on her chest pointing straight at the sun. “You don’t smoke, do you?”
“Not yet.”
“That’s good,” she said, and turned back into the trailer, shutting the door behind.
Don pulled out King’s gun and checked the clip, and put it in his jacket pocket. Then he pulled out the fake gun. He’d keep that, too, in case he ran into another TV set. He put it in his other pocket, next to the phone. Where was the phone? He’d lost his phone.
Six
SCENE 19
Tim and Tom walked into the Dodgeport Savings and Loan and were quickly met by a cloud of plaster that covered Tom’s baldness and gathered in his crevices and made the workers around him look like potbellied ghosts. It was the same bank the gang first robbed in ’86, that had been closed since ’93 and was now used almost exclusively for TV. In the last eight years Tom had seen at least a dozen robberies filmed there, two loan applications, one deposit. His mother still calling him at the bar every time it came on, saying, “I saw that bank you robbed on the television again.”
Through the lobby they followed the handmade signs that said “Production Office,” arrows in red marker leading them past the workers to the wide marble staircase and down a long hall to a desk where a receptionist was talking to herself through a white mask. She directed them through the double doors into a large wooden office, air-conditioned to such a degree that Tom thought the plaster on the rug was frost.
“Sit down,” Miss Delouise said, “please,” spitting out the last word as if it was something too hot. “You wish to speak to me.”
Tom sat, then stood. She raised her hand and he sat again. “You are making a television show about our lives and we have come to insist on our proper dispensation.”
“How well put,” said Tim.
Miss Delouise blew the dust from a stack of pages on her desk and said, “Okay. Here’s the script. Now tell me whom you are supposed to be.”
“I’m Tom and this is Tim. We’re half twins.”
“I’m sorry, but there are neither Toms nor Tims nor twins.”
“We were in the gang with Don and Happy, we robbed the banks and gave the money back to the needy and now we need to get paid.”
“Hear, hear,” said Tim.
“I’ve got a Don and a Happy here,” Delouise said, “and I’ve got a Renaldo and a Cam.”
“Renaldo?” asked Tom.
“Twenty-two years old,” Miss Delouise read, “strong, handsome . . .”
“That’s me,” Tom said.
“Mexican-American,” she continued.
“That’s Tim,” Tom corrected. “What about the other one, Cam?”
“Twenty-one-year-old African-American.”
“I’ll be Renaldo,” said Tom.
“Neither one of you fit these descriptions.” She pointed to Tom, “You are middle-aged and fat and balding, and you,” she pointed to Tim, “have dandruff and—”
“Hold it right there,” Tom said. “That’s the oldest trick, Delouise; first you steal the rights to our life, then a little surgery, new names. All right now tell me this, one of these guys punches out the mob boss, Maury Threetoes, am I right?”
“That’s scene twenty-three, and I believe it’s the Don character who does the punching.”
“That’s a lie.”
“What’s a lie?”
“I’m the one who punches out the mob boss.”
“You punched out the mob boss?”
Tom and Tim looked at each other; they shook their heads, “You think we’d be sitting here talking to you right now if we punched out Maury Threetoes.”
Miss Delouise pointed at Tom. “You didn’t.”
“It’s a story.”
“We were pretty drunk that night,” said Tim.
Tom reached over and punched his brother in the arm.
Miss Delouise widened her eyes, “I want you both to go home and see if you can tell the difference between the facts of your life and the stories you’ve made up, and when you do, if you do, whatever you do, do not come back here to see me ever again. The man that the Don character is based on, Don Reedy, has already signed a release for this show. That’s all I need.”
“Don can’t sign; he’s in prison,” Tom said.
“He signed a release to get an early parole. It’s a standard form.”
Tom stood and ran to the window; Tim moved to the door. “Don’s out?”
“I’ll call him in,” she picked up her phone.
“No,” Tom said, reaching over to push down her hand. “What we’re trying to say, Miss Delouise, is that we would like to accept the positions you originally offered us, as consultants.”
“That position has been filled. We do, however, have a couple of openings, for parking consultants.”
“If you could just give us a little advance, a hundred dollars.”
“You can pick it up in petty cash,” she said, “once you sign this disclaimer.”
20
Rita drank her second coffee in the shower, her head thumping against the water, a police siren passing under. All morning she couldn’t sleep, one after the other the sirens by her window. No one told her when she signed the lease she’d be moving to the middle of a television set, that every morning the guns would start firing, the police chasing after. She couldn’t walk out her door without a production assistant screaming up, Stop, Hurry, Go back. Rita wanted to go back; she missed her old street that had reminded her of Odessa where she grew up, the smells and voices, a sign on the tailor’s door, “Russian Food.” She poured her third coffee, dressing in the
kitchen so she wouldn’t have to think, a black skirt, the red sweater she hadn’t washed.
Down the stairs and out the door, more sirens on the corner, her headache again. She walked the other way, forty feet, and stopped suddenly to look across the street, the homeless man sleeping on the steps. She crossed over to him, the blackened face and hands, swollen feet, sock parts and filthy bandages. All the sacrifices she’d made to get to this place, moving her boxes on public buses. Every night for the last two weeks thinking her husband was right behind her, now finding him snoring across from her door.
She looked down on the pajamas she’d bought for his birthday, back in Moscow, that brown color you couldn’t get here. He looked so little on the stairs, “Misha,” she said, and kicked him in the side. When he didn’t move she kicked him again, then walked around the alley entrance to the garbage cans on the sidewalk, finding a table leg somebody dropped there. She picked it up and hit him with it, and hit him again, and despite his cries kept hitting him until she could breathe, “Stop following me,” first in English, then the Russian, “leave me alone.”
“Rediska,” he cried, his arms still covering his face. “What? I am working.”
She struck the steps by his neck. “You stay away from where I live.”
“Where do you live? I work here.”
She lowered the leg. “You work?”
“I lie in the street. Fifty dollars a day. For the TV show.”
She climbed over him to sit on the top step, looking across to her building, the old lady on the second floor, who slept in a chair by the window so she wouldn’t miss any car crashes or sudden weather changes or beatings of husbands. Rita lowered her face to her lap. “You were never going to kill me.”
“It was you who killed me, Rediska.”
“They were just the words.”
“I want to die with you.”
“They don’t mean anything.”
“I want us to die together. That’s why I’m working. It costs five thousand dollars to kill us. I know the man who will do it.”
“You should have gone home when we were in Brooklyn, like you said. You should never have followed in the first place.”
“You choose the place you want it done, Rediska. I will choose the music.”
She bent to Misha’s ear, “I don’t care anymore. Do you understand? If you come near my house I’ll hit you again and I don’t need to hire someone.” She threw the table leg into the street and walked over it and up the block, Misha yelling after, “You choose the place and I hope you don’t choose here. I work in this place. But I would not want to live.”
21
Don began his search at the fake pizza shop, Sal’s Neapolitan Fountain, hoping the phone had fallen out where he started running, not where he finished—he didn’t want to go back into that store again. Miserably, he retraced his steps, dragging his feet behind. He was going to rest once he found it. Take a taxi back to the hotel. Lock the doors and order in. Lie in his bunk and watch some television until things calmed down a bit.
Two blocks on Lemmings and no phone. He reached the corner and looked up, the man with the headphones again, “You can’t go through.” Don could see now he was just a kid, barely twenty, and scared.
“Look, I don’t want to go in. I just want my phone back, which must have dropped out while I was at the store. Just tell someone to go for it and bring it to me.”
The kid said something into his microphone, only about two or three words. Don couldn’t hear, but he knew that two or three words were not enough to ask for someone to go to the store and look for something. They were more like the number of words you would use to call for help, or for the police. A few seconds later the sirens kicked in.
Don stepped forward, forcing the kid back. “Go ahead. Do what you got to do.”
The cars came from all corners. Light blue with NYPD on the doors. They cut off the streets, front and sides, climbing the curbs to block the sidewalks, forcing Don backward. He counted seven cars. Cops running up on foot, one on a horse.
“There you go,” Don said, backing up the block. “Okay.” They weren’t real cops, but they looked real, and after a certain number showed up, what difference did it make. He was on parole, carrying a gun he didn’t want to use. He walked away, down the only street open, sidewalks cracking under his feet. Who knew how many more calls he’d missed? In less than six hours, he’d lost his phone and picked up two guns.
He stopped at the corner, waiting for traffic, and noticed a woman standing two feet away, brown hair floating above a red sweater, a high skirt on tight heels. He’d almost missed her, this beautiful woman standing in front of him. She was tall, almost to his nose, her hair curly and thick, slightly blond at the ends, rising and falling where she stood. He’d been running around all morning, when all he wanted to do was eat pizza and look at women, that’s all a man should be expected to do his first day out of prison. Especially since it seemed like he was going right back in.
He stepped to her side; she looked younger than he first thought, less than thirty. How old did Don look? A lot more than thirty. He put his hands in his pockets, reaching for something to say. Hello, nice day. Then what? He could tell her all about life in prison, his good friends Marion and Mohammed and Poppy. No, he’d say he was in television. She stepped off the curb. The light was green. He was going to say hello.
22
“Hello?” Rob shook his phone, “Don’t put me on hold. I can’t hold anymore.” His foot pressed to the Eltra’s floor, the little engine screaming back, eight-five, ninety. “Dyan Swaine? Is it you? You’re breaking up. Hello? You’re gone.” Rob threw the phone at the windshield, resting his chin on the steering wheel. “I can’t work this way.” He reached across the seat and picked up the pages Halo had given him, reading again Dyan’s list of changes, “Don taps Rita gently with the car. She isn’t hurt at all. They talk and go dancing. She joins the gang.” A hundred more. He threw the pages at the phone, “Stay in control, Rob,” the Crumbtown exit a quarter mile ahead, “you’re still the director here.” He fought the car onto the ramp.
There were some problems with Rita’s character; okay, he was aware of that, and some of those problems were in the writing. Rob couldn’t find her voice, basically every time she opened her mouth a cartoon started. He tried moving his office into the bar, to watch her work, the way she talked to the other men, she never talked to him. He went back to the scene where they met. Spent afternoons running it over in his head, Rita’s eyes in the windshield, looking at his. In that moment after impact, and just before she became unconscious, something had happened between them, something that Rob understood right away, but that was taking the Rita character much longer to grasp.
He made a right onto Leak, quick rights on Locust and Thorn, back onto Lemmings and past Gloria’s bar, the painters putting on the new name, Sherwood’s (Halo’s idea). They were shooting scenes four, nine, and nineteen there, starting tomorrow afternoon, the robbery rehearsals in the morning, dinner with Little Eddy tonight. That left him three hours today to work on her scenes. He had to move quickly.
He made a left onto Haight, not knowing where he was going until he saw her, two blocks ahead, Rita standing on the curb, that same sweater she had on before, the first time they were together. All the hopes he’d had that day, before the surrendering began, Brian Halo and Little Eddy and Dyan Swaine, the mayor’s department of TV, Russian bar owners who wanted to be casting directors, a production designer who covered everything in parachutes. Rita was the last thing left that Rob could call his own. His inspiration. She stepped off the curb, into the street. Just pull up beside her and say hi, hear her voice again, see the scene in his mind, remembering how it happened. I’m sorry I hit you.
She started across, not looking, the red light behind her. He’d go back to the beginning, start from the start. Just tap her, he said, the car picking up speed. Easy, he said, Slow down, pushing the gas accidentally. He wanted the brake.
Stop, he shouted, though by then it was too late.
23
She started across and Don stepped into the space that she left, waiting a second to breathe her perfume, so that he smelled the car before he saw it, getting faster as it came at them, a red Eltra that wasn’t going to stop, leaving him exactly enough time to reach his arms around her and pull back hard, the car just missing, continuing on. They fell as one, onto the hood of a double-parked Dauphin, some very awkward and accidental hand positions on the way to standing up.
“That was close,” he said.
She ironed her sweater with her palms, staring so intently at him he had to stare away. “Yes, very close,” she said, and turned to walk up the street. Don lay on the hood for several seconds, watching her go. The hell with the phone. He was going to get her number.
He was halfway across the street when another car came through the light, skidding to a stop in front of him, blocking his way. A gray suit stepped out, holding a gold badge, the same face that had arrested Don ten years before. “Hey Don,” Detective Hammamann said. “I was looking for you.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out Don’s phone. “Guess what I found.”
24
Rita had seen the car coming and she was getting out of the way anyway. She hadn’t asked for the man’s help, she didn’t need anyone’s help, and she wasn’t going to say thank you for what she didn’t need. She thought he was Misha at first, grabbing her from behind like that, pulling her down on the hood. And then she thought he was someone else, her old boyfriend, Victor. That moment when they were getting off the car, she had to really look at the man to be sure he wasn’t Victor, even though she knew that Victor was dead, at least that’s what her mother said.
It was just another example of how little control she had lately over what she was thinking, her head a pile of images and events, no order to it, nothing ever finished. Victor and Misha, the two great loves of her life. Some life. And he didn’t look like Victor at all. Now that she had time to think about it, he looked more like that actor whose name she’d forgotten. That’s why she was so confused, because for the last few years whenever she would think about Victor, she would always see this actor’s face. But now she knew he didn’t look like the actor. After seeing this man on the street today, who did look like the actor, and didn’t look like Victor at all. She had to admit, she couldn’t remember what Victor looked like.