Fun and Games

7

Who’s they? I want you to tell me who they is.

—John Aquino, Blow Out

HARDIE COULDN’T believe what his eyes were transmitting to his brain.

“Where the fuck is my car?”

“Get away from the window,” the girl scream-whispered behind him. “Please, I’m begging you. You looked, you’re upset, now move the fuck away before something really bad happens.”

“It was just there.”

“Are you really this dense? Or haven’t you heard a word I’ve said?”

But Hardie was too focused on the stretch of asphalt in front of the garage. The sight absolutely boggled his mind. It didn’t make sense. When he finally glanced down at the psycho chick crouched next to him, mic stand in her hand, he decided he’d had enough. He darted for the door. He thought he was moving pretty fast, but she was a lot faster, even limping. The girl easily closed the distance, slid herself into the space between him and the wall, and again pointed the edge of the mic stand at the hollow of his throat.

“No,” she said.

Hardie tried to push her out of the way. “Move.”

“They took your car, don’t you realize that?”

“Well, I’ll just force Them to give it back. Move.”

“You can’t go outside. You go outside, you’re dead.”

“I can still catch them.”

Hardie was half-serious about that. The roads up here were twisty. Winding. They—whoever—just stole it a few seconds ago. He heard them do it. Maybe he had a chance—slim, he knew, but it was still a chance—at catching them on foot. But then what? Leave this girl here, by herself, in the house he was supposed to be guarding?

She hissed at him:

“Get down! It’s bad enough they saw you!”

Hardie sometimes marveled at how quickly things could spin out of control. He’d been in L.A. only, what?… ninety minutes total?… and he’d already lost all his possessions except for the wallet in his back pocket, the useless set of car keys in his front pocket, the cell phone with no service, and the clothes on his back. He’d jumped off a roof and landed in unidentified animal crap. Hardie half expected this crazy bird to force him to strip, then make him jump off the back deck into the wilds, just to show him—that’s how Hollywood does ya.

Then Hardie remembered that his carry-on bag had still been in the passenger seat of the Honda Whatever, and a tiny knot of grief formed in his stomach.

Hardie believed there were two kinds of things in the world. Things that could be replaced, and things that could not. He’d spent the past three years giving away or tossing everything in his life that could be replaced. This turned out to be most things in his life. Clothes, CDs, kitchen utensils, old books. All of it junk. You could soak it in lighter fluid and it wouldn’t matter. Because somewhere, out there, was another copy. But his duffel bag, the one he never checked at airlines, the one that never left his side, was full of things that could not be replaced.

And now it was gone.

Hardie pulled the cell out of his pocket. Fuck this. At the very least, his rental car was stolen. He needed to report it.

The girl touched his arm. “They won’t let you call.”

Hardie eyeballed her. “What do you mean?”

“I tried to use my phone, too. They’ve stopped the signals.”

Hardie checked the screen. No bars. Just like earlier, when he tried to call Virgil. At the time, he thought it was just because he was up in the Hollywood Hills, where service was shitty. Maybe he’d get lucky.

Hardie said, “It’s the mountain. Nobody’s jamming anything.”

“Look, I’ve been to countless parties up here. Calls are dropped all the time, but a service blackout like this? For, like, hours? No. It’s Them.”

Well, it was Them.

Mann’s team was equipped with a suitcase-size digital portable jammer—normally reserved for police and military use—as well as handheld jammers given to each operative. These devices were easy to obtain and extremely useful for operating under a blanket of silence. Mann insisted that all of her employees have them on at all times during every production.

To cover the immediate Alta Brea area, Mann had O’Neal power up the larger, more powerful jammer in the van—the same kind police use during hostage situations and drug raids so that the bad guys won’t be able to connect to the outside world.

With the handhelds, Mann opted for simplicity. Every time you talk on your cell, you use two frequencies—talk through one, listen through another. The simplest way to block your cell is to jam one of those frequencies. This makes your phone believe there is no service at all, and it tells you so. You can curse at the phone and shake it, but it will do no good. Cell phones are stupid that way.

To stay in touch with her operatives, Mann issued multiband intrateam tactical radio units with encryption designed to look like ordinary phones, including hands-free Bluetooth devices so they could look like pretty much every other asshole in L.A.

No bars—no service.

No car.

Get ahold of yourself there, Chuck.

Breathe.

Let’s think this through.

All of this talk about Them and ooh, watch out, THEY might see you?

Bullshit.

What Hardie had interrupted was probably a home invasion. Two addicts who knew that Lowenbruck had left on a long trip; maybe even one of them glommed his security code from some party. Hell, maybe the security company even sold them the code—it wouldn’t be the first time.

So we have this girl and probably some crackhead boyfriend. Lots of expensive AV gear on the top floor, even more expensive recording equipment on floor two. They hear Charlie on the roof, then on the deck, and then he’s in—and they’re freaking out, scrambling, not thinking straight. Chick goes downstairs; boyfriend slips out the front. Takes the opportunity and steals the Honda Whatever. Now this chick would be all about getting away while she could.

“I’m telling you, get away from the window!”

Hardie reached out, grabbed her wrist, and squeezed.

She cried out. The metal mic stand fell out of her hand, clattered on the hardwood floor.

“Please stop sticking that thing in my face.”

As he continued squeezing, the girl’s eyes widened, her mouth opening in a silent scream. Then she looked down at Hardie’s chest, and her expression changed completely. From pain to revulsion.

“Oh God, your chest…,” she said.

Hardie was halfway through the motion of looking down at his chest when he realized he was being an idiot.

But by then it was too late, because she had already shoved the palm of her free hand up into his jaw.

Lane always thought it was funny that she became known for the action movies. It had all started with that stupid remake Dead by Dawn. A woman-on-the-run story, and that summer, she’d been the face du jour. EW and Vanity Fair and everybody else had made a big deal about her first shoot-’em-up, having previously dismissed her as the sweet-but-dippy friend of the hero’s girlfriend in a trilogy of vapid preteen comedies. But after Dead, the only scripts she saw were actioners, and she found herself in what seemed like an endless succession of grueling mixed-martial-arts sessions. It felt like she spent more time being thrown around onto vinyl mats than on a stage actually acting. She used to run lines in her sleep; now boyfriends complained about being kicked and rabbit-punched in their sleep. Enrico used to work her hard.

The move she pulled on this asshole now came from a heist thriller called Your Kiss Might Kill Me, where she’d had to (believably) overpower a former Navy SEAL/bank guard who had at least two hundred pounds on her.

Funny how it came back to her so easily.

Hardie’s head snapped back, his teeth smashing together so hard it sent jagged bolts of pain through his skull. She’d gotten him good. He staggered back on his heels, instantly aware of the mic stand she’d dropped on the floor. If she stooped down, picked it up, and rammed it through his guts, well, then he’d die a ridiculously stupid death.

Fortunately she opted for kicking the living shit out of him instead, throwing a rapid succession of punches, chops, and kicks at his face, torso, balls. She clearly had training, but the coke and whatever else buzzing around in her bloodstream made her hits sloppy and unfocused.

Hardie absorbed the blows, waited for his moment, and then lunged, wrapped his thick arms around her, and squeezed. The girl struggled and opened her mouth to scream—which was the moment Hardie flipped her to the floor, blasting the air out of her lungs. While she was still stunned, he straddled her, pinning her arms under his thighs.

“You finished?” Hardie asked.

“G-Get off me!”

“Shhhh. I’m two hundred forty pounds. You’re not going anywhere.”

The girl struggled a bit more, as if she could summon the adrenaline to prove him wrong. But then she stopped and looked up at Hardie defiantly.

“So, what now?” she said.

“What now? Well, for starters, how about you tell me where your boyfriend took my rental car? It’s not that I give a damn about the car. But I’ve got a bag inside that means a lot to me, and if I don’t get it back, I’m going to track him down and beat the living fuck out of him.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Beat who?”

“Your boyfriend.”

She huffed.

“Boyfriend?”

“Boyfriend, husband, accomplice, whatever… whoever took my fucking car.”

“Don’t you get it? They took your car… your own people… so whatever this is, what are you waiting for? Just do it already. Do it!”

Hardie could feel her body start to shiver. Her lips trembled, too, and her eyes slid to the corners.

“Hey.”

Hardie gently touched her chin and moved it slightly. Her eyes found his again. He’d seen plenty of overdoses back in the job. She wasn’t quite there, but whatever she’d shot herself up with, she’d flirted with the edge.

“Let’s cut the bullshit, okay? I’m not Them, there is no Them.” Now she focused on him again. Narrowed her eyes.

“You really don’t know who I am, do you?”

“I have no idea. You kind of look like this actress, what the hell’s her name…?”

“Lane Madden.”

That was it. Now Hardie understood why she’d looked familiar. Over the past decades he’d studied faces, coaxing unwilling witnesses through countless descriptions, running his eyes over an endless stream of black-and-white photos in mugshot binders. He’d come to the conclusion that God was a shameless self-plagiarist, because he had no problem using the same molds over and over again. A lot of people resembled a lot of other people.

“That’s her. I guess you’ve been told that before.”

“All of my life.”

“So what’s your name?”

“Lane Madden.”

Hardie started to laugh, but the sound died in his throat, because now that he looked at her and saw the stone sincerity in her eyes, he knew she was telling the truth. Holy shit. He’d been stabbed and beaten by Lane Madden. In any other circumstance, it’d be an amusing little story to share with the world. Hey, guess who rear-ended me on Beverly Boulevard! Winona Ryder! Now, though… not so much.

Lane—Lane Madden?—looked up at him.

“Can you please get off me?”

Hardie was already shifting his weight off her body, embarrassed. Confused, but embarrassed. He’d been straddling a celebrity, not subduing a drugged-out teenager. Every cell in his body wanted to apologize. He felt her tense up beneath his thighs. Hardie tried to lighten things up.

“You’re not going to try to stab me or punch me in the jaw again, are you?”

“I’m going to assume for the moment,” Lane Madden said, “that you’re not one of Them. But let me say for the record, that if you are one of Them, and this is you playing dumb just so you can kill me later, then you’re a big fucking asshole.”

“I promise I’m not going to kill you.”

Hardie lifted one knee off the floor and eased himself off her body. Lane rolled over, coughed, then worked herself up into a sitting position, resting her back against a wall. They were near the media room—the oversize plasma screen, the DVDs, and leather couches. Hardie had this theory, two years running, that he was living in a kind of purgatory. This was further proof. All he wanted to do was watch a movie, crash on the couch, get his booze on.

Now he was sitting on the floor of a house in the Hollywood Hills with a coked-up actress who thought people were trying to kill her.

Hardie rubbed his head.

“Did I walk into a movie set or something? Because that’s what it feels like all of a sudden.”

“I wish. Believe me. Just promise me you won’t open that door, okay?”

“There are no hidden cameras anywhere, right? This isn’t some reality show, is it? Because if it is, I’d really like to leave the set now.”

“No. It’s not. This is all totally real.”

“So, I’m guessing you know Lowenbruck?” Hardie asked.

Lane took a moment to think about it. “Who?”

“The composer. Guy who owns this house. You know him, right?”

She looked around now, as if she just tuned in to the fact that, oh yeah, she was squatting in someone else’s home.

“No. I found the keys in the mailbox, just like I said.”

“How did you turn off the security system?”

“I didn’t. I wasn’t on when I got here.”

Nice one, Lowenbruck. Why not just prop the front door open a few inches, tape a note to it saying, NOBODY HERE. BURGLARS, HELP YOURSELVES.

“Then why did you set it?” Hardie asked.

“So I’d know if anyone was coming. God, I feel like I’m dreaming. None of this is happening. I keep hoping I’m going to wake up in front of the TV.”

Hardie nodded. He knew exactly what she meant.

Hardie followed Lane back through the house to the bathroom. It was a compromise; Hardie wanted to stay on the top floor, and Lane wanted to be in a room without any windows. Once inside, she closed the door, then pointed Hardie to the toilet. Very gracious of her. He saw her bloodied pants balled-up inside the sink, as well as a single shoe. Lane leaned against the sink, let her head tilt back. She exhaled heavily, then shuddered.

Now that he knew who she was, Hardie saw her in a different way. She had a presence about her. This was no complete stranger telling him a crazy story. It was someone he sort of, kind of knew, which made it difficult to completely dismiss what she was saying.

Hardie realized how ridiculous that was. He’d seen this woman act in silly comedies; he didn’t really know her.

But she was famous. Why would she lie?

(Because, duh, famous people were crazy!)

Lane Madden leaned in close and, through trembling lips, told him everything that had happened to her. The creepy race along Decker Canyon Road. The weird guy in the Chevy Malibu. The engineered accident on the 101. The forced speedball. The fistful of safety glass. The narrow escape to the edge of the 101.

“Now do you believe me? Does that sound like a series of coincidences?”

Hardie had to admit that, yeah, it sounded odd, even for L.A.

“What happened next?” he asked.

“I pulled myself over the fence and limped up toward Lake Hollywood. I used to come jogging up here, and I knew there were houses everywhere. I thought maybe I could yell for help or something.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“Because I thought about the kind of people who were after me. They weren’t some carjackers or something. They were organized. They had a plan all worked out. What if I knocked on the door of some family—and the assholes who were after me hurt them, too? I couldn’t put innocent people at risk. So I kept running. I thought I could outrun them.”

“Limping all the way?”

“I did my best. You kind of forget about pain when people are trying to kill you.”

Hardie didn’t know L.A. geography all that well. Was it possible to limp from the 101 all the way up here? Seemed kind of implausible. Wasn’t there, like, a mountain in the way?

“So did they follow you?”

“God, yeah. Just when I thought I’d lost them, I’d see another one of them rounding the corner. It was spooky.”

She touched his leg, poking at him with her fingertips.

“That’s when I realized how they were tracking me—and this is what really freaked me out, because it shows you how freakin’ connected they all are.”

“How did they track you?”

“My ankle bracelet.”

Hardie stared at her for a moment, waiting for the rest of the story. When he realized that was the extent of her explanation, he squinted, tilted his head and said:

“Huh?”

“The ankle bracelet. You know… the kind the court gives you when you’ve fucked up one too many times?”

Blank look from Hardie. Lane smiled slightly and leaned back.

“You really don’t know about this? Like, this is the first you’re hearing of it? I thought pretty much the entire world knew I was wearing that damned thing. All of those jokes on those late-night shows, the pictures on the websites… God, they fucking love it, thinking they’re so clever, asking me to flash a little leg.”

“Were you under house arrest or something?”

“No… more as in, if I take so much as a sip of beer, some guy in a monitoring station somewhere will know it, and they’ll call the L.A. County prosecutor.”

Hardie nodded. “So you think they were able to track you with it.”

Lane tapped an index finger on her own temple. “I don’t think they did. I know they did. Because I smashed the fucking thing off with a rock, threw it away, and ran even faster. Haven’t seen them since. I came here to pull myself together.”

“So you just broke in.”

“Well… yeah.”

“What made you pick this house? Weren’t you worried about the people inside? You know, putting innocent lives at risk, and all of that?”

Lane took a breath.

“Look, I was coming around the bend down there—you know, turning up from Durand? And I saw the owner of this house step outside. He had luggage and his keys. He locked his door, put the keys in the mailbox, then drove away. I figured his house was empty. No one could get hurt. So I ran across the street and got the keys and let myself in and took a mic stand from the studio and hid in the downstairs bathroom and now we’re all caught up.”

“What time was this?”

“I don’t know—a couple of hours ago?”

That couldn’t be right. According to Virgil, the client—Andrew Lowenbruck—caught his flight late last night, not just a few hours ago. That was the whole reason for leaving the keys in the mailbox… right?

“So let me get this right—a couple of hours ago you saw the owner of this house leave?”

“Yes.”

“So you do know Andrew Lowenbruck?”

“Who?”

Hardie smiled. “The owner of this house.”

“No, no idea. Why do you keep asking me that question? Everybody in Hollywood doesn’t, like, know each other.”

It was an old cop trick. Asking the same question over and over again. You’d be surprised how many people answer it differently the second, third, fourth time around.

Hardie watched Lane carefully. He was no mastermind interrogator—as a matter of fact, he’d never interrogated anybody before. That wasn’t his job. He’d observed Nate do it countless times. Nate claimed that Hardie’s observations were invaluable, and that he was good to have in the room. Hardie knew that was crap. Nate Parish was the genius detective with a mind like a lynx. He wondered what Nate would make of the actress and her story.

Actually, Hardie wondered what Nate would make of the whole situation. No doubt he’d have it figured out in 10.7 seconds. He was like goddamned Sherlock Holmes, plucking a few details out of the air and piecing them together into a logical, hard reality.

Not Hardie.

Not with his slow, lizard-like brain.

Lane reached out and touched his hand. “Hey, I’m not boring you or anything?”

“No. Just thinking. Keep going.”

“So I waited in here. I was hoping they’d give up, and later I’d have a chance to go for help. But apparently they’re still out there. And now they know I’m in here.”

“You think so?”

“I don’t know… no. I think if they knew for sure, they’d come kicking in the doors. But then they probably saw your car, and—”

“Ms. Madden—”

“You can call me Lane, you know.”

“Okay, Lane. I’ve saved the million-dollar question for last. Why do you think these people want to kill you?”

She hesitated. “I have no idea. All I know is, they’re serious.”

“You have no idea at all?”

“Isn’t that what I said? I was out late last night driving, just to clear my head—and I hadn’t been drinking, thank you very much, you can ask my manager, Haley. And then, boom, they came out of nowhere.”

Hardie considered this.

“Let me see your arm.”

“Why?”

“Just let me see where they injected you.”

She obediently made a tight little fist and extended her arm, showing him the crook of her elbow. Hardie looked. There was a needle mark, as well as some bruising around it. She’d been injected hard, and some veins had collapsed around the site. Still, she could have done it herself. Like shooting up before/during/after a Hollywood party.

“Mind if I touch you?”

Lane smirked. “You’ve already put me in a bear-hug death grip and sat on me. Now you’re asking if I mind if you touch me?”

“Just thinking of the lawsuit. Don’t want you and your lawyers tacking on extra items.”

Lane raised a right hand.

“I give you permission to touch me, Mr. Hardie.”

“Call me Charlie.”

Hardie gently took her by the wrist and rotated her arm inward. So strange to touch her. So strange to touch another female human being, actually. When was the last time he’d done that? He examined her arm quickly. No finger-shaped bruises. No other marks at all, except for random scrapes and cuts.

“Huh.”

“What?”

“Just wondering why a speedball.”

“Because they probably wanted my death to look like an accident. Like I was some dumb two-bit cokehead actress who went out cruising late and ended up rear-ending some poor father of three or something.”

“Why go through all that trouble?”

Lane looked at him. “I told you, I don’t know. Why did that deranged idiot shoot John Lennon?”

Hardie tried to keep an open mind, swear to God he did. But even the slow, lazy lizard part of his brain was screaming BULLSHIT at every turn.

The kind of killers Hardie encountered back in Philly were idiot scumbag husbands who beat their wives with baseball bats and tried to dump their bodies in storage lockers registered to their real names. Gangbangers looking to make a name for themselves, undercutting one another with cheaper and cheaper hits to the point where you could take out a witness in a major drug case for about the price of a fucking iPod. Drug-gang hitmen, Russian-mob enforcers. The killers he knew didn’t work in coordinated packs, and they certainly didn’t try to make their work look like an accident. That was the whole point. A death was not supposed to be an Act of God—it was meant as an Act of Vladmir, To Teach You Not to Steal From His Stash.

“Let me take a look outside and see if I can’t put your mind at ease, huh? And then we can get to a hospital.”

“No. No fucking way. That’s what they want. God knows what they’ll do to you the moment you set foot outside. Don’t you understand? These people operate on a completely different level.”

Hardie muttered:

“They.”

Factboy gathered more intel on Charles D. Hardie. Slowly, it painted an interesting, if kind of sad and deadbeatish, kind of picture.

Hardie had been filing tax returns as a “house sitter” for the past twenty-three months.

He didn’t make much.

The address on the rental agency turned out to be for a house that had been on the market for twenty-seven months.

The house was crap.

Debit-card statements revealed that he lived in hotels or the places he watched.

He didn’t spend much. Movie rentals.

(Who the hell went to an actual store and rented movies anymore?)

All bills went to a PO Box in Philadelphia.

The person who paid for that box lived at 255 Dana Street, Abington, Pennsylvania.

So far, no connection between Madden and Hardie, outside of a few DVD rentals on Hardie’s debit card. Nothing from the past three years. But previously he’d rented some romantic comedies where Madden was featured in a supporting role: How to Date a Zombie, The Hook-Up, Never the Bride.

(Factboy’s wife had made him sit through that last one. He wanted to use a fork on his eyeballs, just to escape the theater.)

Anyway, it was safe to assume that Hardie recognized her. Also safe to assume Madden had shared the events of the past few hours with him.

Factboy told all of this to Mann, who disconnected without a word of thanks or good job or anything. Good thing he wasn’t in this business for the ego-boosting. Factboy pretend-flushed, then rejoined his family, who were hot and cranky, and tired of waiting around for him.

Mann needed this production concluded immediately. Another, much bigger and more complex job on the other side of the mountain was pending. This silly little bitch was taking far too much time and money.

Somewhere in all of this, there would have to be a visit to an ophthalmologist. The mobile doc who’d patched it stressed he wasn’t an expert but thought it could be a severe corneal abrasion—definitely something that needed proper attention, not a quick fix. The wound burned and itched like crazy; it was all Mann could do not to scratch or rub around the edges.

Another reason to move things along.

The bright, warm sun helped distract Mann from the pain. She rubbed more sunscreen on her breasts, dried her hands with a white terry-cloth towel she’d found in the house.

Then a voice spoke into her ear. O’Neal.

“Heads up, y’all. We’ve got another guest.”

The driver of the Dodge Sprinter kept the engine idling as he engaged the parking brake. For a precarious moment, the van seemed like it would roll back down Alta Brea and crash into something that cost millions of dollars. But the brake held. The driver, in shorts and a company polo shirt, stood up and stepped into the back, wiping his face with a sleeve. He looked like he’d been up all night.

O’Neal spoke quietly: “Uh, anybody expecting a package?”

Mann, down below, said, “Keep watching.”

After a few seconds the driver emerged with a piece of luggage. He hopped out of the back, checked his computerized clipboard, typed in a few things, then popped out the long handle and started rolling the bag up to the house. The wheels bumped on the uneven paving blocks.

“Courier’s got a bag,” O’Neal said, “and he’s headed to the house. Repeat; headed right to the house.”

“Hang on a minute,” Mann said.

“We don’t have a minute. I need to know what you want.”

Mann said nothing.

Which pissed O’Neal off. Not that it mattered, killing the delivery guy. But it was one more detail, one more annoying errand extending this job into super-bugfuck-crazy overtime. If that was the case, then Mann should let him know right away. If not, O’Neal should have the opportunity to coax him away from the place. Jokes aside, this was literally a matter of life and death.

The delivery guy pushed the handle back down into the bag and steadied it against his leg.

“Okay, he’s there,” O’Neal said. “About to knock.”

Mann’s voice, in his ear:

“Good. Let him.”