Fun and Games

21

I found out something I never knew.

I found out my world was not the real world.

—Robert F. Kennedy

“A MANHATTAN on the rocks,” Hardie said, adding, “lots of ice.”

“Yes, sir.”

The tuxedoed waiter moved away from the table and headed toward the oak bar.

Musso & Frank was a Hollywood legend. Even Hardie was familiar with the place. Countless directors, actors, screenwriters had sat in these same chairs, knocking back tumblers of booze and sawing into chops and making big Hollywood deals. Hardie knew this because one night—bored out of his mind and with no new movies to watch—he had watched a DVD extra that gave a quickie history of the place. As Hardie understood it, Musso & Frank was where you came to create dreams, and others could just gawk.

Which was the whole idea.

From the moment they stepped inside, everybody was staring at them.

Granted, Hardie would have stared at them, too. Their clothes were dirty and torn and blood-encrusted. Hardie was pretty sure he had blood caked all around his head and neck. The gore that had seeped through his gray T-shirt had left it stiff and dark. He was also dragging along his stupid luggage, headless Spider-Man and all, which was probably a faux pas unto itself.

But he was here with World Famous Actress Lane Madden, and that made all the difference.

The maître’d, an older gray-haired man in a natty suit, blanched at first but then recognized her face. If Lane Madden wanted a table, then she would receive a table, no matter her physical appearance. He didn’t flinch. Maybe he was used to actors showing up in their makeup, looking like they crawled away from a plane crash site.

But everyone else…

It was clear no one had ever seen anything like this. Not even this midafternoon crowd of lingering lunch-hour boozers and people hoping to get Saturday night started early.

Oh, the stares.

Hardie looked at her. “Aren’t you going to order something?”

“I feel like I need to throw up. Like I’m having bed spins but I haven’t been drinking. I should really call my manager.”

“Have some bread. Or a drink.”

“I don’t want any food. And I’m not allowed to have any alcohol. What are we doing here?”

“You’re in public, being seen. If everything you’ve told me is true, then this is the last place They’d want you. Consider this a big ol’ thumb in their eyes.”

“But Musso’s? Why here?”

“Why not? This is a Hollywood power joint, right?”

“Uh…”

Hardie was about to tell her about the DVD extra, when someone stood up from the bar and approached their table. Instinctively, Hardie reached for a butter knife, tensed himself. The guy, wearing a designer T-shirt and jeans, held up a phone and snapped a photo, then walked away without a word. So, that’s how they do you here in L.A. Quick and dirty. Hardie put the knife back on the table and called after the guy.

“You’re welcome, buddy.”

They were here to be seen—but not for long. The way Hardie figured it, they’d stay just long enough to have a drink and be photographed and gossiped about. In a world where jacking off in the back of a porno theater makes you notorious, this couldn’t help but raise some eyebrows. Hardie saw it as pissing on the burning embers of their failed “accidental death.”

They’d get noticed, and Topless’s little plans would fall apart, and then they’d get out of here and go ghost for a while and have Deke call in the cavalry.

Lane, meanwhile, looked sick to her stomach.

The guy with the cell phone—a production assistant named Josh Geary—quickly cut through the length of the restaurant and headed out the back to the parking lot. This was insane, what he just saw. Josh checked the photo again, squinting, but yeah. Lane Madden, looking like she’d just crawled out of her own grave. A few key presses later, the photo was on its way to a web editor he knew back in NYC. Geary was leaving for NYC next month, and hey, it couldn’t hurt to send a little gift ahead of time.

The editor, whose name was Zoey Jordan, texted back: I WANT TO HAVE YOUR ABORTION. (Ah, those Fight Club jokes never got old.) Jordan worked at a celebrity gossip blog. NYC-based, but they also ran L.A. stuff. Especially L.A. stuff like this.

Within twenty seconds, the photo was online with a snarky headline: LIFE IN THE FAST… ER, LANE?

Hardie was confused. Sitting across the table, Lane looked like she’d just been handed a death sentence.

“This is a good thing,” Hardie said. “We’ve just proven you didn’t die in a car crash this morning.”

“Uh huh.”

“They can’t do a thing now. They wanted to kill you and make it look like an accident and they failed. You’re sitting here in public. That dork in the two-hundred-dollar T-shirt probably just saved your life. He sends it to his friends, they’ll send it around.”

“But then what comes next?”

Hardie looked around the restaurant. Where was the waiter with his Manhattan? His brain worked better on booze, he was sure of it. Half of the shit that happened to him today wouldn’t have happened if he’d had a minor buzz on.

“Look, I know you said that these Accident People are connected at the highest levels. Which sounds like a stupid movie line, by the way. Anyway, there’s one guy I trust, literally, with my life.”

“Now that sounds like a stupid movie line.”

“Touché. And that’s the guy I told you about. Deke. He can’t be touched. He’s straighter than a grizzly’s dick. I can call him, and he’ll have an investigation going by the time my drink arrives. He lives for shit like this. He’ll investigate. Everything comes out in the open.”

Everything comes out in the open.

Charlie’s words broadsided her.

That was exactly what she’d been afraid of for three years now, wasn’t it? The very thought of it terrified her. Even worse than dying. Because if she had died back on the 101, if she hadn’t been lucky with that stupid martial arts move and that fistful of safety glass… then at least her worst memory would have died with her.

God, all this time, fighting Them, struggling to survive, escaping, running, begging for a chance to live…

Maybe all this time she should have been rooting for them.

Because once everything comes out in the open…

This time, Factboy was in the bathroom legitimately—taking a quick leak—when the phone in his cargo pants pocket buzzed. He shook, zipped up, then checked the screen and smiled. A Google alert on Lane Madden. He read it, then read it again, just to make sure his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him or somebody hadn’t linked to an Onion piece or something. Then he autodialed Mann.

“She’s at Musso and Frank,” Factboy said. “Right now?”

“Right now.”

“Doing what?”

“Having drinks, apparently.”

There was a pause on the line; for a moment Factboy worried that Mann would be thinking he was playing a joke, or fucking around with her for some reason (though he’d never dare). Instead she said:

“You know, I could kiss you.”

And with that, the call terminated.

Factboy’s face melted into a loose grin. It wasn’t that he relished a kiss from someone like Mann—even if she was hot, she was still scary as fuck. No, what made Factboy happy was that warm, fuzzy glow of job security, the knowledge that he’d done well, and that he could bask in it for a few minutes. When he rejoined his family at dinner, his wife was pleasantly surprised he’d returned so quickly.

And Factboy told his kids that, yes, they could order ice cream out on the back porch after they finished their meals.

O’Neal eased himself onto a wooden bench in the Lake Hollywood dog park. Hands and legs scraped to hell, bruising all up and down his back, head throbbing, eyes watering. What hurt most, though, was his pride. They have a word for henchmen who fuck up. And that would be… ex-henchmen. He could imagine Mann berating him. If he hadn’t gone after them solo, they wouldn’t have a van loaded with gear and sensitive information now, would they?

As if on cue, his cell vibrated.

Mann. “

We’ve got approval on a budget extension. But we need to wrap this up right now. No excuses, no more mistakes.”

“I’m fine, Mann, really, thanks for asking.”

Mann ignored him. O’Neal supposed he should know better than to expect concern about his well-being or health. In her mind, O’Neal had fucked up.

“I have two new team members bringing a vehicle,” Mann said. “I’ve got your position. Stay where you are. We’ll come get you.”

“Do you even know where they are?”

“Yeah. I know.”

“And you’ve got a new narrative in mind?”

“Of course.”

At long last the waiter placed the Manhattan on the table in front of Hardie. Sparkling reddish amber, packed with fresh ice, a vision of Heaven if Hardie ever saw one. But he shocked himself by not touching it. Not until he figured out what was up with Lane, who was staring at his drink.

“What is it? What’s wrong? I mean, besides the—well, obvious?”

Lane picked up a fork from the table, then pressed her thumbs against it until her knuckles turned white.

“I’m going to tell you something I haven’t told anybody.”

“Okay.”

“You’re not going to like it.”

“Okay.”

Lane told her story.

Three years ago—January.

They’d been goofing around in her new car, speeding down Mulholland Drive in the late afternoon. He said for a real thrill you had to do Mulholland in the dark, in the rain, going like 90 miles per hour. She told him he was ridiculous. He told her that he should drive, really show her what the car could do. The car was factory-new. Delivered yesterday. Yesterday she’d been on a shoot, the last day. The car was a present from the director. The car was a thing of high-speed beauty. She loved it, and loved that it made Blond Viking God jealous. She could tell.

The delivery guys woke her up. The shoot had been long, grueling. She was fried to the point of not knowing what day it was, or what a normal routine felt like. This was always the case; it took a few weeks of film detox before she felt normal again. By then she’d be diving back in for her next role. Which was fine. She wanted to keep busy. She liked being busy. She’d heard a term—journeyman actor—and liked it. It meant she wouldn’t flame out quickly. She preferred to have thirty decent movies on her IMDB page than a handful of spectacular smashes and utter flameouts.

Blond Viking God told her she was lazy; anything less than Total World Domination wasn’t worth her time.

Blond Viking God was in a position to say something like that. Even then, three years ago, he was the Blond Viking God.

So she received her new car and quickly showered and dressed and ate a croissant—the first breadlike food she’d had in five weeks—and poured some orange juice down her throat and went off to Blond Viking God’s place in Santa Monica. He was hung-over but immediately suggested a drink.

She pouted a little—she’ll admit that much. She wanted to go driving around L.A. Something she used to do all the time.

Wait until I show you Decker Canyon Road, she said.

Fuck that, he said. Mulholland or nothing, baby!

He had a few drinks, and then she was coerced into having a beer—again, the first booze she’d had in five weeks, since the start of the shoot. The first sip was a cold, fuzzy blast. Wow. Reluctantly, she accepted another beer, nursing it as he tossed back bourbon. He’d been on a big bourbon kick lately, having come back from shooting a gothic/science-fiction thing down in New Orleans. Bought it by the case. She hoped it was a phase; she didn’t like kissing him after a bourbon jag.

She saw the light in his eyes go dimmer and dimmer, and she hated when that happened. He got to a certain point where it was impossible to reach him. So she said, shoes on, we’re going for a ride.

He put his shoes on; they went for a ride.

They didn’t go as far as Decker Canyon Road—honestly, she was afraid all the twists and turns would make him puke. And sorry, she was not cleaning Blond Viking God vomit out of her factory-new sports car. He egged her on—Mulholland, baby! Mulholland! Until finally she agreed, taking the PCH up to Sunset, then up Beverly Glen.

Finally to Mulholland.

He gleefully told her the story behind the name. Mulholland was a government official who was responsible for the deaths of at least 450 people—including forty-some kids—when a dam burst.

Only in L.A., he said, would they name a road after someone like that.

They stopped at a lookout, at which point Blond Viking God grabbed the keys.

No.

C’mon.

Fuck, no. Don’t be an idiot.

I’m fine. I just want to give it a test spin.

And I’m saying no.

He jingled the keys in front of her.

Just a mile or so.

How much bourbon did you drink?

See you at the bottom.

She screamed his name—

But ultimately he won, because he always won, because he was the Blond Viking God and he raced her factory-new sports car down Mulholland Drive, yelling, NOW, THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT.

They didn’t die.

They didn’t hit anyone.

Frankly, he was actually okay behind the wheel.

And Lane had to admit, maybe she was being silly, because it was a pretty amazing ride, the cool January air making all of L.A. look crystal-clear sharp down to the molecule. And there they were, on top of everything.

They decided to get a bite down in the valley. Somewhere quiet, out of the way. He said he knew the perfect place. They went down Beverly Glen to Ventura. Blond Viking God was confused; he knew it was here somewhere, but maybe he’d passed it. So he hooked a left onto a side street, then another left, onto another side street. I’m hungry, he said, then gunned it. He saw the kid two seconds before—chasing a Wiffle ball into the street. He slammed the brakes. The tires screamed. She screamed. None of it did any good.

The world ended.

Lane saw the white ball spinning, slowly making its way to the opposite curb.

He cursed.

He looked around.

He cursed again.

He put the car in reverse.

Lane screaming, WHAT ARE YOU DOING

He raced around the kid and rocketed the rest of the way up the street, even though doors were opening all around them.

WE CAN’T WE CAN’T

She looked back and saw his little body and she screamed again, but they were cut off by a hairpin turn to the right, and then everything receded into the distance.

Hardie’s fingers touched his Manhattan, but he didn’t lift the drink from the table. He watched her as she spoke. Low tones, quiet and calm, as if she had been rehearsing this tale ever since it happened. But she wasn’t acting—there was a difference. She wasn’t becoming someone else. This was the real her, beneath everything else. Letting it all go.

“They never caught you,” Hardie said.

“They never caught us,” she said, “because of the Accident People.”

He called his manager.

His manager gave him shit right away—Lane could tell, even hearing just one side of the conversation. But Blond Viking God put the manager back in his place and made his wishes explicitly clear:

GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF THIS.

See, the Blond Viking God could not be wrapped up in a manslaughter trial. The Blond Viking God had a full slate, and nothing could stop that without the risk of losing a ridiculous amount of money. Even Blond Viking God’s death wouldn’t stop the production of the next six films—two of them summer tent-poles—because, by God, the money men would find a way to reanimate his fucking corpse to finish them.

And the manager understood that.

So the manager advised his client:

HIDE

And then he called the studio’s lawyers, who got word to the top, and it was deemed important enough to bring in the Accident People.

By then Blond Viking God had taken them all the way out beyond the San Bernadinos; they were directed to a garage in Chatsworth. The car would have to be destroyed; the studio was already arranging for a duplicate to be delivered to Lane’s Venice address. They were cleaned up, given new clothes. They were told to never, ever speak of this. Because it didn’t happen. It would be erased.

The Accident People asked the Blond Viking God for his precise route. A third car was procured—same make, same model, same color. Two actors were hired. They drove around Sherman Oaks recklessly, then disappeared.

By seven p.m. they were having drinks at the Standard, having arrived there in Blond Viking God’s own car (which had been delivered from Santa Monica). Cameras flashed; the music was throbbing. Friends were there. They asked how it felt to have a day or two off, wow, what did you do? They told their friends what the Accident People had suggested: just fucking around all day at Lane’s place in Venice.

Lane was quiet but compliant. She drank and tried to will her hands to STOP SHAKING.

At the same time, the duplicate car, with stand-ins, was cruising around Studio City. The Accident People listened. The police received calls—reports of someone driving a vehicle like a maniac around their neighborhood. The hit-and-run was huge news. The victim, an eight-year-old boy, had died at the scene. The description of the car had gone out wide. Police vowed to catch these “animals.”

The Accident People took care of the loose ends with piles of cash. The car dealer: silenced. The director: silenced—and he didn’t even need the incentive. There was no upside to having your movie’s star arrested for manslaughter.

Lane’s hands didn’t stop shaking for days.

Not long after, she and the Blond Viking God split. She stopped calling him, he stopped wondering if she’d call. Still, they were considered a “hot couple” by the various celebrity mags for the next nine months.

Lane went to her manager, told him she didn’t know if she could do this. The manager said there wasn’t a choice.

The studio threw a ton of work at her. Action movies. Something different for her. Lane thought she’d hate it. Turned out she loved it. Loved the preparation, the intensity, the physicality, the mindlessness of it all.

She did that for two years.

Then, about a year ago, she caught sight of a billboard for a new reality show:

The Truth Hunters.

It was America’s Most Wanted 2.0—a fugitive-catching show mashed together with Unsolved Mysteries and forensic supercop and cold case dramas. All of it one hundred percent true. Each installment had a single sponsor. The sponsor gave a pile of cash. The producers handpicked cases. The cash was used to reopen the investigation and get things done. Stage new forensics tests. New lab reports. New photographs. New simulations.

Famously, the executive producer, Jonathan Hunter, did not take a dime from the show; he claimed to use every available resource to catch “people who thought they could get away with it.” He lived in the same, slightly cramped Studio City home that he and his wife, Evelyn, had purchased back in the late 1980s; the family was supported by his wife’s income. But what really touched the hearts of viewers was the fact that Jonathan Hunter knew what it was like to have an unsolved case eat away at your soul. His son Kevin had been struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver one afternoon two years before.

Lane told Hardie:

“We’re the ones who did it.”

And with that billboard on Sunset Boulevard began Lane’s final descent.

Now Lane prepared for it—the look of sheer hatred that she’d somehow managed to avoid for the past three years. The judgment, the fury, the disgust. The punishment. Boil it down and Lane realized it was just like being a kid, where the thing you fear the most is getting in trouble.

Instead, Hardie said:

“We should go.”