Alarm Call

Chapter 24

We thought about checking out of the Century Wilshire and driving straight to Vegas, where Everett had said my suite was waiting. Prim was all for it, but she wasn’t driving: it would have taken us until midnight and I did not fancy arriving that late.

Instead we walked back down to the Village and ate in a place called the Napa Valley Grille. . no, I don’t know where the ‘e’ came from. It was glass-walled so we were pretty visible, but I didn’t care. In fact, I found that I didn’t care about anything much, other than getting to the Bellagio, meeting up with my friends and starting work on their movie.

I hadn’t forgotten about Susie’s message, or her advice to check my e-mail, but there was a practical difficulty with that. Our hotel had no in-room access, and the one terminal they did possess seemed to have been commandeered permanently by a Japanese salesman.

Prim was pretty subdued over dinner. I could see that she was wrestling with the decision she had to make. When I considered it again, the teething-ring trick had been quite cute, a piece of psychological pressure applied just at the key moment.

In fact we hardly spoke to each other, we seemed consumed with our own thoughts, chose automatically from the menu. . I can’t even remember what we ate, and that’s unusual for me … and then just picked at our food.

We were back at the hotel and in our suite when the dam burst. I had just closed the door when I saw her shoulders start to shake; she buried her face in her hands and sat on the edge of the bed closest to her. I let her sob for a while, and then, when it had started to subside, I drew her to her feet and held her to me.

‘Oz, I’m so sorry,’ she mumbled into my chest. ‘I should never have got you involved in this. It’s taken you away from home, it’s cost you a packet, and it’s made all sorts of trouble for you. I can, can. .’ She broke off as a big sob racked her. ‘. . can tell that you’ve had enough, and that you’d rather be out of it.’

I’d been thinking just that, in spite of myself, but I could hardly admit it, could I? Besides, we had travelled a long way together, and not just in that week. And there was this too; in the course of our latest journey I had come to feel completely isolated from what I knew as home, and from the person around whom it all revolved. Susie had more or less ordered us both on this mission, and now she was giving me grief.

So I whispered into Prim’s ear the traditional Scottish words of comfort, ‘Don’t be fuckin’ daft,’ and pressed her even tighter to me. We stayed that way for the rest of the night.

When I woke next morning, at seven, my right arm was numb, trapped under her head. I eased it out without disturbing her, then peeled off the clothes in which I had fallen asleep, and headed for the shower. When I returned, still trying to dry myself adequately with a towel that was moist from the previous day, she was sitting on the bed we had slept on, with her knees pulled up to her chest, and her newly discarded clothes at her feet. Her face was puffed and blotchy, but she managed a small smile.

‘How can you do that?’ she asked. ‘You sleep all night in your clothes, yet ten minutes later you’re looking like a movie star.’

‘I am a bloody movie star,’ I reminded her.

‘Yes, now, but you’ve always been able to do that.’

I grinned at her. ‘Well, now’s your chance to do the same … although you’ve got a bit of work to do.’

‘I’d better get to it then.’ She jumped from the bed, only to pause on her way to the bathroom. ‘Do you know what’s sad, though?’ she said. ‘Now you are a movie star, you don’t fancy me a bit.’

I looked down at her figure; it had been trim before, but now it qualified as voluptuous. ‘Don’t you believe it,’ I told her. ‘I may be a happily married man, but I’m still a man. So, please, get all that out of my sight.’

She seemed cheered up by that dismissal; she spent about half an hour in the bathroom, but after she was done and dressed for the journey, everything was restored to normal. We ate a very light breakfast in the hotel courtyard, then checked out and set off on our journey.

I’d never driven from LA to Las Vegas before, but technology’s a wonderful thing. I switched on the GSP and did what I was told. All I had to do was steer the thing. It took us out of Westwood on Interstate 405, then on to I-10, through the mass of Los Angeles itself and out to San Bernadino, where it took the I-15 and headed for Nevada, across mostly open country, much of it desert. I put the Jaguar into cruise control and leaned back with not much more than a finger on the wheel, to enjoy the view from the almost empty highway.

Eventually, in the distance, Las Vegas loomed up before us; it’s one of the most amazing things I have ever seen, that fantastic skyline rising from the flat, arid landscape. The effect was as if we were standing still and it was coming up from the very ground itself to engulf us. It reminded me of the great scene in Spielberg’s Close Encounters, when the mother ship appears for the first time, and you’re stunned by the sheer size of the thing.

And engulf us it did, although the navigation system did its job to the end. It guided us along the Strip, past the steel and concrete wonderlands, until it told me to turn off and into the driveway of the Bellagio Hotel and Casino.

I left the valet to park the Jaguar, and to tell Hertz they could come and collect it, then I allowed a porter to wheel our luggage inside. The Bellagio’s reception area turned out to be around the same size as the whole of the Century Wilshire, if not slightly larger; at least, that was how it seemed.

There wasn’t just one clerk at Reception, there was a team, and they all knew who I was. They gave us the royal treatment, and within a minute we were being escorted to the lift. The suite that awaited us was bloody enormous. It was on the top floor with a view up and down the Strip. There were two bedrooms, each with his and hers bathrooms, and a living area the size of a driving range. I looked at Prim. She looked at me. I was used to luxury accommodation when I was working, but this left me as gob-smacked as she was.

There was a bottle of champagne in an ice-bucket on the dining-table with a note attached. It was from Everett and it read, Welcome to the City of Dreams, Daze. I’m in suite eleven. I called him straight away to tell him I’d arrived, but Reception had already done that.

‘Hi, buddy,’ he greeted me. ‘When did your flight get in?’

‘I drove.’

He gave a great booming laugh. ‘From San Francisco?’ He had seen the telly news as well.

‘From the City of the Angels.’

‘Why the hell were you there? Are your wife and kids with you?’

‘One of my wives is, no kids; the extra room will be used, don’t worry. It’s a long story; I’ll explain when I see you.’

‘I can’t wait. Get yourselves settled in, then come along to my suite for lunch. Say around two.’

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘but I’ll be on my own. Primavera’s expecting a phone call.’

‘Primavera? The lady we met in Barcelona? I thought you got divorced a few years back.’

‘We did, and we still are. That’s part of the long story.’

I left him wondering and picked up Prim’s case from the foyer. . the suite actually had a foyer. . where the bellboy had left it. I carried it through to the bedroom to the left of the living area. ‘This is yours,’ I told her. ‘I’ll be away over there.’

She grinned at me. ‘We might as well be in separate hotels,’ she said.

‘Maybe we should have been all along,’ I muttered. I took my suitcase to the other bedroom and unpacked it. I found a laundry bag and crammed all my used stuff into it, then called Housekeeping and asked them to pick it up straight way. I went to tell Prim she should do the same, to find her opening the champagne.

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘The ice is melting.’

‘Can’t let that happen,’ I agreed. ‘I’ll do that; you go and bag up your noxious knickers and all your other stuff. The Seventh Cavalry laundry service is on its way to the rescue.’

‘Thank Christ for that.’

When she returned I handed her a glass; we walked across to the window and looked out, taking in the amazing view. They say that all great cities are a collection of villages that have gradually evolved into a single mass, while retaining some of their own distinctive colour and characteristics. Las Vegas isn’t like that, not one bit, although for my money it’s a great city too. It’s a collection of extraordinary visions and follies, all of which have swum together to create a fairyland nobody could ever have imagined had they looked out across what was then desert, sixty years ago. It’s said that the place in which we stood cost a billion dollars, and it’s just one among many, and not even the biggest. God knows how much dough’s been sunk into the Strip, all of it dedicated to separating Mr and Mrs America from theirs.

Susie doesn’t know what she’s missed, I thought to myself.

That thought extended to the message left on my cell-phone, and to my e-mail. Whatever was on it, I knew it would be grief of some sort; I really didn’t need any more at that point, but I knew that I had to get it over with. So I fetched my laptop, booted it up and plugged the modem lead into the dedicated jack-point in the suite’s office area.

I went straight to my AOL box; it had been a couple of days since I checked it, so there were quite a few messages waiting, including one from Ellie and one from Jonny. They were in touch all the time, and I was pretty sure they would be routine, so I left them unopened and concentrated on the two that were of interest, new mails from Paul Wallinger and from Susie, hers despatched more recently, judging by its place in the queue.

I went to Wallinger’s first; as soon as it appeared on screen I saw that it was addressed to both Susie and me. There was no heading and no message, just an attachment labelled ‘Untitled 2.1 zip’. I hit the download button and watched as a series of images was displayed in a strip at the foot of the screen. After the week I’d just had, nothing should have shocked me, but these did.

‘Come here and see this,’ I called out to Prim, with an edge to my voice that brought her running to stand behind me, her hands on my shoulders, as she looked at the laptop. I hit the command that says ‘view as a slideshow’, and watched as each picture was displayed, full screen size.

There were five of them and they had all been taken in our hotel in Minneapolis, from a point high on one wall, on our first night there, when we’d got back to our room after dinner and a few beers in Gluek’s. They showed the living area and a part of one of the beds, beside the screen. All but one of the images featured Prim, almost facing the hidden camera. In the first, she was unbuttoning her shirt, in the second she was stepping out of her jeans, in the third she was letting her bra fall on to the floor, and in the fourth she was naked, back to the camera and heading towards the bedroom. The last of the images showed me; I was in my boxers, thank God, and I’d been going from the bathroom to my bed, but anyone looking at the shot would have thought I was about to get into the one in which Prim could be seen lying.

We stared at the incriminating photographs, as they ran over and over again before us. Prim’s fingers were digging into my shoulder, harder and harder with each frame. ‘He bugged our room, Oz,’ she gasped. ‘The dirty bastard bugged our room. How could he have done that?’

‘Probably quite easily if he was in the room next door,’ I told her.

‘But why’s he sent these to you now?’

‘For information, you might say. He’s also sent them to Susie.’

‘Oh, no!’ Her hands left my shoulders; as I killed the slideshow and turned round to face her, I saw that they were pressed to her cheeks. ‘God,’ she gasped, ‘what’s she going to think?’

‘What she was meant to think, when he cancelled our second room and set this up.’

‘Paul did that?’

‘The very boy.’

‘But why?’

‘I have no idea.’ I looked up at her. ‘Leave me alone for a bit, will you? There’s a message from Susie; I’d better read it.’

She went back to the window, and I opened Susie’s mail. I winced as I read it.

So this is the bloody great suite you told me you had. It looks like an ordinary hotel room to me. You lied to me, Oz, and I don’t think I’ll ever believe you again. If you want her, fucking stay with her, but don’t think you’re getting anywhere near the kids.

I tried to make myself angry with her, but I couldn’t. If that had been her in those photos, with someone else, someone would have had to scrape me off the ceiling. I thought about picking up the phone there and then, but could see only a yelling contest in prospect, so instead I replied to her mail.

My darling [I wrote], you must believe me when I tell you that nothing’s happened between Prim and me, in Minneapolis or anywhere else. We were set up there by Paul Wallinger; he cancelled our second room by pretending to be on my staff, and he occupied it himself. He bugged our room and took those pictures. We had had a couple of drinks and maybe we were not as decorous as we should have been, but I promise you that it was no more than that. I don’t know why the guy did it, but I expect to catch up with him pretty soon, and when I do, and when Prim has got Tom back, I promise you I will get the truth out of him.

He’s playing a game with Prim. He’s showed part of his hand, in that he’s given her a draft agreement to sign, swapping Tom for the money she has in Vancouver. He wants to make the trade here in Las Vegas. Whether she does it or not is her call. I’ve still got her with me in the hope that when he contacts her again, I’ll be able to locate the kid while they negotiate, and enforce Harvey’s court order. We need to be close if this is going to work, or she could lose her money and her son. I don’t like this any more than you do, but you sent me, remember. If your trust in me has evaporated, get on a plane and come straight out here. Believe this or not as you will, but I’ve missed you from the moment I stepped out of our front door.

Love

Oz.

I re-read it, hit the ‘send’ button, then went back over to the window, and Prim. I picked up my abandoned glass and stared out at the city for quite a long time, seeing none of it.

‘Is she as steamed up as I’d be in her shoes?’ she asked, at last.

I shook my head. ‘Compared to Susie, your temper is a breeze beside a hurricane. You have been in her shoes, remember. She’s much more steamed up than you ever were.’

‘Can you fix it?’

‘I hope so. I love her, Prim, don’t be in any doubt about that,’ I felt grimmer than at any time before in my life as I picked up the bottle and refilled my glass. ‘If I lose her, and Wallinger’s to blame, you can forget anything I’ve said up to now. I’ll make a phone call and he’ll be dead.’

She looked at me anxiously. ‘Then you’d better not lose her, and drag yourself down in the process.’

As she spoke I heard a click from the laptop, telling me that I had more mail. I went back across and reopened my box. Susie must have been sitting beside her computer; my message had been answered.

It was not good news.

All well and good [she’d written], but if I put detectives on your trail what would they find, in Vancouver, and in San Francisco or in Los Angeles? Give me a straight answer, Yes or No, to this question. Did you and Prim sleep together in the Century Wilshire last night?

I took a deep breath; I hadn’t told her we were booked into the Century Wilshire. I began hammering on the keyboard.

I’m not playing, Susie. This is my straight choice for you. You either believe Wallinger’s lies and insinuations or you believe my truth. I am not having an affair with Prim or anyone else.

I sent the message and stayed by the laptop. The reply came through inside three minutes.

When the chambermaid in the Campton Place made the beds in your discreet two-bedroom suite on Friday morning, yours hadn’t been slept in. Shove it, Oz.

I sighed. She had indeed put detectives on my trail, or Wallinger had spoken to the chambermaid himself. Either way, I’d stitched myself up, well and truly.

I sent her one last message.

It’s all smoke and mirrors, Susie. I love you.

Then I switched the damned machine off.

‘What can I do?’ I asked myself aloud. What have you always done when you were in deep shit? I heard myself reply, inside my head.

I picked up the phone and I called my dad. In the few times in my life when all else has failed, he’s always been there. As soon as he heard my voice, he knew that it wasn’t just a ‘hello’ call.

‘What’s up, son?’ he asked me.

‘Dad, I want you to do something for me. My life might depend on it. I want you to call Susie and tell her I’ve promised you that I haven’t betrayed her. You don’t need to know the details; just tell her I’ve sworn that to you on a stack of Bibles and asked you to pass it on word for word.’

‘I take it that you’ve already told her this but she’s having trouble believing you.’

‘You take it right.’

‘Then what makes you think she’ll believe me?’

I thought about that one for a bit. ‘Dad,’ I told him, when I’d worked out the answer, ‘I might know that you’re not perfect, but nobody else does. As far as Susie’s concerned, when Moses came down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments, he looked just like Mac the Dentist.’

He chuckled. ‘I never did tell you about that burning bush I saw on the way home from the pub one night, did I? Okay, son, I’ll do it; I won’t promise that it’ll do any good, but I’ll do it. Oh, aye, and by the way, your sister’s got engaged. The guy even came and asked me if it was all right. He’s not so bad after all; a crap golfer, but not so bad. Goodnight.’

Hey, I thought, a piece of good news.

I went back into the laptop and read Ellie’s message. It confirmed formally what my father had just told me, and what she’d let slip a week before. I sent her a quick

Congratulations, I couldn’t be more pleased for you.

then looked at Jonny’s. He told me the same story, then asked,

What do you think of the law as a career, Uncle Oz? Harvey seems to be pretty well fixed.

I replied,

I know two sorts of lawyers, the boring ones and those who overcome the turgidity of their profession and remain interesting, amusing human beings. If you believe you can be the latter, go for it.

I think Jonny sees me as a Moses substitute as well. I hoped that after I’d climbed out from under the ruins I found myself buried in he’d feel the same way.

I looked at the box again, in case there was another message from Susie. There wasn’t. I clicked a button and deleted everything, then switched off once more.

I checked my watch; it was coming up for two. I left Prim with the rest of the champagne, told her to order whatever lunch she wanted from Room Service, then went in search of the big man’s suite.

As he’d said, it was just along the corridor. I knocked on the door and, as always, when it opened everything went dark. Everett Davis is so big he blocks the light from nearly every doorway he approaches. I still laugh when I remember the first time he came to see me in Glasgow; I thought there had been an unscheduled eclipse.

Since those days Daze, to give him his ring name, had gone on to become one of the biggest names in sports entertainment, as professional wrestling is called now for very good US tax reasons. He was everything in the game, performer, talent spotter, promoter and president of a company that he had founded and built to the point at which it was quoted on the New York Stock Exchange.

As I stepped into his suite I had entered the presence of a genuine dollar billionaire.

‘It’s great to see you, Oz,’ he began. ‘I want you to know how much I appreciate your being here. It could be the difference between success and failure for this movie.’

I looked up at him; way up. ‘Come on, man, failure’s never an option for you. I might make you a few more dollars; that’s what you mean, isn’t it?’

‘Let’s just say I’ll appreciate having your name on the marquee when we premiere.’

‘Is Diane here?’ I asked.

‘No, she’s in Jersey with the family.’ Everett’s kids are around the same age as mine. ‘Before we go in there,’ he said quietly, ‘gimme a rundown on your ex’s problems.’ I gave him the quick, five-minute version, leaving out all the aggravation between me and Susie.

‘This guy’s in Vegas, you reckon?’ he asked, when I was finished.

‘So we believe.’

His eyes grew hard; you wouldn’t want to be the cause of him looking like that. ‘If you need any help to round him up, I’ve got a small army here.’

‘Man, you’re a large army in your own right. Thanks for the offer; I’ll bear it in mind if I need help, but I’m looking forward to crucifying this guy myself.’

He led me into the suite; it wasn’t as big as mine. The table was set for lunch, four places, and the other two were occupied by my friend Liam Matthews, who had the lead role in Serious Impact. . although he’d be billed below me … and the director, Santiago Temple. I’d never met him but I recognised him from the pages of Empire magazine. A couple of waiters were hovering in the background, ready to go to work.

‘Hi, slugger,’ said Liam, in his light Irish accent. He looked at my patched-up ear. ‘What the hell did that?’

‘A soft-nosed point three eight bullet, according to what was in the rest of the chamber. That’s what you get when you’re an all-action movie star, sunshine.’

‘On this movie, when I shoot you, I’ll be using blanks, I promise.’

‘I may not take you on trust.’ Liam and I weren’t always pals. In fact, the first time we met I took a punch at him for chatting up my wife; I was married to Jan then.

‘I will check every round personally,’ said Temple.

I shook my head. ‘I’ve never met you before,’ I told him. ‘You may not know the difference between a dummy and the real thing. I think I’d rather the armourer did it.’ I was grinning when I said it, but I wasn’t kidding. There have been accidents in the past: take a look at the end of the short career of Brandon Lee.

He glanced at the plaster. ‘What’s under that?’ he asked me.

‘Some very neat stitching; makeup should be able to hide it, if you’re worried.’

‘As it happens, I’m not. The rescheduling will give you time to recover.’

I looked at Everett as we took our seats and the waiters moved in. ‘Come again?’

He smiled. ‘Something I’ve been holding out on you. You’ll have noted that the majority of your scenes involve Jerry.’ I had; I was to play the smooth bad guy, and Jerry Gradi was to play my muscle. ‘Well, we’ve had a little problem.’ Jerry’s nearly as big as Everett; I couldn’t imagine any of his problems being little, but I was wrong. ‘He’s caught chickenpox from his little boy,’ said Daze with a huge smile, ‘and he’s been quarantined.’

I had to grin too, at the thought of the mighty Behemoth being flattened by a few spots.

‘He’ll be out of action for another week,’ Everett went on. ‘However, Santiago’s managed to move things around. If it’s okay with you, we’ll switch your scenes with Liam to this week and compress your action with Jerry into the week following, but with the best will in the world, we can’t get you into action before Wednesday, at the earliest, and maybe even Thursday.’

I found myself wondering whether that would give me time to fly home to see Susie, but I realised pretty quickly that if I did I’d be lucky to be able to spend more than half an hour with her, and that wouldn’t be nearly enough. Still, hopefully it would give me a window to get Prim’s thing done.

‘It’s okay with me,’ I said.

That was the only piece of business we had to do, and it was over in a couple of seconds. The main purpose of the get-together was to give me a chance to get to know Santiago, or Santi, as he insisted I call him. He was an earnest young guy, still in his twenties; he’d done fewer movies than I had, and he’d only directed two of them. However, I knew that Everett wouldn’t have hired him if he’d had any doubts about his ability to deliver a good product, so I felt comfortable with him from the start.

We spent the next couple of hours just catching up. Liam and Everett spent a good chunk of the time pulling my chain about the San Francisco incident. After all, they were the professional athletes, and I was supposed to be the dilettante, the pretender; they thought the whole thing was a great laugh.

Eventually, though, the joke was played out and so were the black grapes and Stilton. Santi gave me a copy of the revised shooting schedule, and I promised to look in on the set before Wednesday to get to know the rest of the cast and the key crew members. I’d enjoyed the break, but the overriding problems hadn’t gone away. For all I knew, Susie might have called me while I was away, or sent me another e-mail, or Prim might have had a call from Wallinger about the completion of their business.

I put the two together and came up with the scenario of Susie calling and Prim answering. That sent a shiver through me, so I said, ‘So long,’ to the guys and headed back to my, our, suite.

I was halfway along the corridor when my mobile sounded. I tore it from my pocket, in the hope that it might be my wife wanting to kiss and make up, but the incoming number read-out showed me at once that it wasn’t. My caller was American, but it wasn’t anyone in my phone book. I pressed the receive button and muttered a noncommittal, ‘Yes,’ in case it was a wrong number.

‘Mr Blackstone?’ a man’s voice rumbled; a voice I thought I knew.

‘It is.’

‘This is John Wallinger.’ I’d been right. ‘Can you speak? Are you alone?’

‘Yes to both. What is it?’

‘Mr Blackstone, I want you to meet with me.’

I joined up a number of mental dots, to form an ugly picture. ‘Has this become a family enterprise all of a sudden?’ I asked him. ‘Or was it all along?’

‘I don’t know what you mean by that. I repeat, I’d like you to meet with me. It’s of vital importance to me that you do, and I believe it will be to you also.’

‘Lieutenant, I’m in Las Vegas, and I’m here to work. I can’t just hop on a plane and go to Minneapolis.’

‘I’m not in Minneapolis. I’m in Santa Fe, New Mexico. There’s someone here I’d like you to meet.’

‘John, I can trust you, can I? If I go there I will be coming back, yes?’

‘I promise you, Mr Blackstone, I wish you no harm; the opposite in fact.’

‘Okay, I’ll be there. But tell me, man, what the hell’s it about?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it over the phone. It’s best that you see for yourself. And one other thing, sir: don’t tell anyone about this, anyone at all.’

‘However you want it. What’s another mystery to me? Where do I meet you, and when?’

‘Midday tomorrow, at a restaurant called the Cowgirl Hall of Fame. I’ll be waiting in the bar.’

I must be crazy, I thought. By that stage in the enterprise, I probably was, so without a second thought I headed down to the lobby and to the concierge. ‘You do travel bookings?’ I asked.

‘We do, sir,’ said yet another of the stunning women who seemed to populate the place.

‘Can you get me a flight to Santa Fe? I have to be there, in the city, by midday tomorrow, returning later in the day.’

She shook her perfectly coiffured head. ‘By schedule, sir, that’s impossible. All the flights from McCarron go via Denver.’

‘Could I drive?’

‘Sir, it’s seven hundred miles. You’d need to leave now.’

‘What do I do, then?’

‘Private charter is your only option. I can probably find you a Lear jet for tomorrow. How many passengers will there be?’

‘Just me. Do it.’

I waited while she called someone. Whoever it was they were on first-name terms; she was Anita, and he was Troy. When the conversation was over. . it involved a lot of nodding, as if they could see each other. . she came back to me. ‘That’s a reservation, sir. Your pilot’s name is Troy Hawkins, and he asks that you be at the Hawkins Air reception desk at McCarron airport by eight thirty tomorrow. It’ll be a two-hour flight, departing at around nine. That will give you time to make your meeting in the city. I’ve taken the liberty of asking Troy to have a car and driver at your disposal at Santa Fe.’

‘No liberty at all, Anita, that’s fine.’

I paid for the charter there and then. Her smile grew even toothier when she saw the name on the credit card. Mine almost disappeared when I saw the cost, but I kept it fixed on, and signed on the dotted line.