Popcorn

Chapter TwentyFive

Bruce had scarcely had time to assimilate the catastrophic collapse of Brooke’s brave attempt at dividing the enemy when he was faced with a further and even greater nightmare.

Standing at the door were not only his nearly exwife, Farrah, but also his beautiful and beloved daughter, Velvet. Velvet was the apple of Bruce’s eye. This had not always been clear to Velvet, possibly because Bruce habitually wore shades. None the less, it was the case. Bruce loved Velvet very much. Also, deep down and in a strange way, he still loved her mother.

What a couple they had been.

Fifteen years earlier Bruce had scored his first directorial assignment and his first (and so far only) wife on the same day. The job was a usedcar commercial, one of those sad, nobudget nasties, made purely for local TV, in which the owner of the business is himself the star of the ad.

‘You want bargains? I’ve got bargains. Crazy bargains!’

At which point the script called for a jump cut so that the client/star could put on plastic novelty glasses, a comedy moustache and a dayglo green bowler hat with a spinning helicopter blade sticking out of the top.

‘That’s right, you’d be crazy to miss ‘em. And I’m crazy to give ‘em, ha ha!’

The picture froze on the client/star’s amusing grin (his laughter soundtrack continued, but speeded up: hahahaheeheehee) and the address of the usedcar lot appeared across the screen.

The one bonus for Bruce as he faced that gruesome morning’s work was that throughout his pitch the star was to be surrounded by a bevy of gorgeous babes in bikinis. The original script had stated that after the jump cut these babes would also suddenly be wearing crazy masks and hats. However, the constraints of the budget meant this idea had to be vetoed.

Farrah had been one of the babes, and Bruce would never forget the first time he saw her. She had arrived for the shoot on her own Harley, which roared throatily as she gunned the throttle preparatory to dismounting. All heads turned, of course, and she got off the bike as if she had just fucked it. If Bruce had been a cartoon character, his eyes would have been on footlong stalks by this time, because Farrah had arrived already in costume and ready to work. Under her studded leather jacket she wore only a bikini and bike boots.

He was utterly smitten, and that very night Velvet was conceived.

Bruce and Farrah had had a good marriage, and a long one by Hollywood standards, supporting each other as they climbed their respective career ladders. Eventually, however, their pretensions and aspirations diverged. As Farrah got older and could no longer do bimbo parts, she started to put on intellectual airs, attending drama classes and pitching for ‘proper’ roles, something which Bruce found excruciatingly embarrassing. Likewise, as Bruce became more and more the doyen of hip culture his pose got tougher and sneerier (to the point where he had even considered a tattoo), which frankly turned Farrah’s stomach, knowing him as she did for the nerd he secretly was. Basically, the marriage eventually failed because she was genuine street pretending to be boulevard, and he was genuine boulevard pretending to be street. They ended up loathing the sight of each other.

But no matter how many times in recent years Bruce had wanted not to see his wife, they were all as nothing to how much he did not want to see her now. On this terrible morning when the psychopath ushered the rest of his sad, dysfunctional little family into their own private hell.

For a moment longer, though, Farrah and Velvet were to remain in ignorance of their danger. Wayne had concealed his gun and Scout had quickly enveloped hers in the folds of her dress before putting the everpresent cushion back on her lap. Was it possible that Wayne might be prepared to let these two new arrivals pass unmolested through the drama he had created? Bruce could scarcely bear to hope.

Even without the weaponry, the scene that greeted Farrah and Velvet as they paused momentarily in lounge doorway was disconcerting.

A gorgeous woman lay on the floor in a grubby, bloodied evening gown, her lip bleeding badly. A strange wildlooking creature was just rising from where she had clearly been sitting astride the prostrate woman. And the young man hovering behind them was the worst of the lot: cocky and sneering, he had nasty, violentlooking tattoos on his heavily muscled arms and what looked alarmingly like bloodstains on his vest and jeans.

‘Bruce, your old lady’s here,’ the man said.

Farrah raised a questioning eyebrow and stuck a piece of gum in her mouth. She didn’t much care for such dismissive familiarity, particularly from so obvious a piece of rough trade, but it took more than a couple of tats and a bit of attitude to throw her.

‘What the hell’s going on here?’ she said, striding into the room. ‘Some kind of disgusting orgy?’

Velvet was equally unimpressed. ‘Oh Daddy, this is sooo gross. I mean, you have really lost it. What’re you into now, drugs or something?’

Velvet was alarmingly selfassertive for a fourteen-yearold, although to be fair, as a product of the Beverly Hills private schooling system she was no more cocksure than the majority of her contemporaries.

Bruce could scarcely speak. He was still trying to adjust to his daughter’s horrifyingly unexpected arrival. ‘It’s just a… a rehearsal, precious.’

Velvet’s face expressed some doubt. In fact, it expressed complete and utter contempt for such an absurd excuse.

‘Oh yeah?’ she laughed. ‘What are you rehearsing, a remake of 1 Spit on Your Grave?’

Brooke picked herself up off the floor, dabbing at her bleeding mouth and coughing from the blood she had swallowed.

Farrah eyed her with naked hostility. ‘Listen, sweetie, if this is some kind of S amp; M thing and he’s been beating up on you, you make your claim out of his share of our property, not mine.’

Brooke did not reply. There was nothing to say.

Suddenly, without really thinking about what he was doing, Bruce grabbed Velvet and pushed her back towards the door.

‘Get out, Velvet. Right now, get out.’

He didn’t care if he was acting suspiciously. He just wanted his daughter to run.

‘Please, Daddy, don’t try and order me around. It’s embarrassing. I’m a grownup woman now. I’ve made an exercise video.’

This was true. Teen Workout with Velvet Delamitri had been something of a success, partly because as many sad old men as teenage girls had bought it.

Thus rebuffed, Bruce turned on Farrah. ‘What the hell did you bring her here for? Send her away now. Get her out. She has no business being here.’

‘No business?’ Farrah sneered ‘Well thank you, Bruce, you’ve just proved my point. I brought our daughter here to remind you that she and I are two and you are one, and that fact will have to be amply reflected in the final settlement.’

Bruce could scarcely contain himself. The woman was talking about money. They were all about to die and she was talking about money! Farrah might be unaware of her predicament but, hell’s tits, what was wrong with the woman?

For the umpteenth time since the nightmare had begun, he tried to calm himself. ‘Look, Farrah, you’ll get a fair settlement, I swear. You can have whatever you want, just you and Velvet leave-’

Huuuurgh, glob. Wayne spat. It was a big spit. He cleared his throat loudly, grollied up hard and gobbed the lot into a vase. It was a spit which announced that he was still there, and still in charge.

Bruce understood. Wayne did not like what Bruce had said. Offering Farrah whatever she wanted in settlement was bound to sound strange, and Bruce’s job was to be normal. That was the only way his daughter was getting out of that house in one piece. But how? How to be normal? Bruce could no longer remember what normal was.

Velvet could, though, and this wasn’t it. What is more, whatever it was, she didn’t like it. ‘Daddy, who are these people? Are they your friends? Can’t they go now?’

Wayne strolled across the room and eyed Velvet up and down. Velvet, as most of her contemporaries did, wore the sexy teen version of conservative grownup clothes. Today it was a smart, tight little twopiece woollen suit in pink – tiny miniskirt and figurehugging little jacket – white tights, high heels, lots of makeup. A scrummy little bundle all trussed up in pastels. Cute and clean and shiny as a ripe cherry. Wayne whistled appreciatively through his teeth.

‘Mm mm, I’ll bet you’re proud of this one, Bruce.’

Velvet set her jaw against his leering stare, but she was acting more confident than she felt.

Scout looked at Velvet too, but she did not appreciate what she saw. It was strange, she thought, how rich girls had that way of looking that was just so clean and fresh and undamaged. Scout knew that Wayne would just love to dirty up that little girl’s life. He wouldn’t do it, of course, because she’d kill him if he did and he knew it. All the same, she didn’t like him leering that way, and she didn’t think much of Velvet.

‘It’s just like you said, precious.’ Wayne was still staring at the girl. ‘We’re friends of your of man’s. I’m Wayne, this is Scout and the bitch with the fat lip is Brooke Daniels.’

‘Brooke Daniels?’ Velvet was now convinced that she’d caught her father in the middle of some disgusting postOscar debauch. She was half relieved and half horrified, relieved to discover that the situation was not more sinister, horrified because it was so disgusting. Overhearing one’s parents having sex is enough to traumatize some kids, so walking in on one of their orgies was a tough call, even for a diamondhard Hollywood brat like Velvet.

She made an ugly face. ‘Oh Daddy, Playboy bunnies? Purlease! That is sooo trashy and also just totally nineteen eighties.’

‘I was never a bunny, I was a centrefold. What’s more, I’m an actress,’ Brooke said quietly.

Bruce had to try again to make Farrah leave, whatever the risk of arousing Wayne ’s anger. The alternative was to let Velvet prattle on, and Bruce knew it would not be long before she made dangerously obvious her distaste for the company she found herself in. Karl had been killed for showing disrespect, and when it came to showing disrespect tough New York agents were not in the same class as cocky little Hollywood princesses.

‘Farrah,’ Bruce barked, pointing his finger at her, ‘I’m busy! Get the girl out. Now!’

Farrah wasn’t going anywhere. It was clear to her that Bruce was worried, even flustered. This suited her; she’d rarely ever seen him anything other than calm and in control. His current mood was likely to bring forth further financial concessions in her favour. She held Velvet to her.

‘Bruce, you are speaking about your own daughter. Trying to throw her out of what was her home. You disgust me. You’d rather be with sluts and street trash than-’

‘Excuse me.’ It was Scout who interrupted her.

Bruce froze, fully expecting his little family to be instantly cut down in a hail of vengeful bullets. But Scout was happy to ignore the insult. She was in a curious mood.

‘Mrs Delamitri? Can I ask you something now?’

‘No, you may not,’ Farrah replied, with enough haughty disdain to cool a chili pepper, haughty disdain which was entirely lost on Scout, who pressed on regardless.

‘Is it true you got so puke drunk one time that you miscarried? That you retched up so hard you done lost your baby?’

For a moment, even Farrah was lost for words. Her battle with the bottle had been long and public. She was naturally aware of the numerous disgusting myths that circulated about her, but she had never been so rudely confronted with one before.

‘What did you say?’

‘Well, that’s what I read in the National Enquirer,’ Scout protested.

‘Well, I heard a better one than that,’ said Wayne. ‘I heard Mrs Delamitri here got stopped in her car one time by the cops, and they asked her to blow in the bag and she offered to blow the cops instead. And she did! Ain’t that right, Farrah?’ Wayne had recounted this anecdote often before, but it still made him laugh.

‘I don’t know about no cops and unhygienic acts,’ Scout said primly, ‘but it sure did say she got puke drunk and lost her child.’

‘And that Velvet here had her first blowjob when she was seven,’ Wayne added.

Velvet had read the article in question. ‘It said nose job! And it wasn’t true!’

Farrah turned on Bruce in fury. ‘What is going on here, Bruce? Is this some kind of pathetic tactic? Are you trying to scare me or something? Because it won’t work.’

‘No, Daddy, it won’t,’ said Velvet, standing beside her mother in fiscal solidarity. ‘Mommy and I want this house, plus the New York apartment.

‘Otherwise it’s trial by talk show. I’ll tell Oprah you used erection creams-’

‘Mommy! Don’t be gross.’

Wayne roared with laughter and poured himself another drink. This was better than he could ever have hoped.

Bruce was desperate now. He threw caution aside. ‘You can have what you want, Farrah, everything, the last cent. I’ll sign today. Just get Velvet out now.’

At last it dawned on Farrah that something might be wrong. She was hardly the most sensitive of souls. She lived in Hollywood, and other people’s problems were other people’s problems. She had been born with a thick skin, and it had been pulled so taut by cosmetic surgeons that these days bad vibes tended just to bounce off it like dried peas off a drum. But when Bruce started talking about handing over everything, she knew something was very wrong. Also, clearly it must have something to do with the dangerouslooking people who seemed to have invaded Bruce’s life. She decided to pursue her claims at a later date.

‘I’ll have my lawyer call. Come on, Velvet. We’re outa here.’

But alas the penny had dropped too late. Wayne was already blocking the doorway.

‘No need for them legal parasites to get involved, Mrs Delamitri. Fuckin’ lawyers are eating away at the soul of this country. So fuck ‘em I say. Fact is, I’ll be handling Mr Delamitri’s side of the negotiations from now on. Is that OK with you?’

‘Come on, Velvet. We’ll talk with your father another time.’ Farrah took Velvet’s hand and tried to push past Wayne, but he held his ground.

‘Truth is, Mrs Delamitri, Bruce here wants you dead.’

He let this sink in for a moment before continuing, ‘He’s said so himself, and I have decided, in view of all the pleasure your husband has given me in the past, to fulfil his wish.’

With this he produced his gun and smiled a big smile.

‘For God’s sake, Wayne, let them go. You said you’d let them go.’

Wayne raised the gun to his shoulder and aimed it at Farrah.

Velvet screamed, shedding about thirtyfive years in three seconds arid turning into a fourteenyearold girl.

‘Daddy, do something!’

‘ Wayne, please!’ Bruce shouted.

Wayne kept his eye trained along the barrel and straight into Farrah’s face.

‘You said you wanted her dead, Bruce. You said that. He admitted he said that, didn’t he, Scout?’

‘I heard him.’

‘You don’t go saying stuff you don’t mean, do you, Bruce?’ Wayne did not take his eye off Farrah.

‘It was a figure of speech,’ Bruce pleaded, his voice cracking with fear. ‘For God’s sake, man, it was a figure of speech.’

‘Bruce, Bruce, calm down, buddy. It is not such a big deal. People get killed every few seconds. Listen, in South Central LA they’re pleased if they make it through lunch. Man, if you live to see your balls drop, you’re a survivor, you’re an old man! C’mon, let me waste the bitch. I’ll take the rap and you get to keep everything.’

Bruce’s brain was thumping. He had to think of something, say something.

‘C’mon, Bruce,’ Wayne continued, ‘this is the luckiest night of your life. I’m a wanted killer, dropped a hundred people. One more or less won’t make any difference to me, but for you… Hey, you’ll never have to hear this bitch’s voice again, never have to put up with that scrawny fuckin’ skullhead in front of your face. You said you wanted her dead, Bruce, you know you did.’

Wayne hadn’t taken his eye off Farrah. It was still trained along the barrel of his gun, while he spoke his killing pitch.

‘Look, Wayne.’ Bruce spoke slowly, every syllable a miracle of mind over fear. ‘I said I wanted Farrah dead because I was imagining something that in thought might or might not be desirable but in reality is obnoxious. Like, have you ever said, “I could eat a horse”? I’ll bet you’ve said something similar. Now of course you don’t actually want to eat a horse but-’

‘Bruce.’ Wayne finally looked up from his gun.

‘Yes?’

‘Are you patronizing me?’

‘No, I’m just-’

‘You think I don’t know the difference between a figure of speech like “I could eat a horse” and a man who’s telling the truth, even though he’s such a spineless, un-American, Lamborghinidriving faggot that he don’t have the guts to admit it? You hate this bitch. If she’d got killed in her car coming here today, you’d have been dancing a jig, I know you would. If fate was to take this fuckin’ fossilized Barbie doll bag o’ bones out of your life, that would be just fine. Well, fate’s working good for you here. The bitch has met a psycho killer. Ain’t your fault, so don’t fight it. Watch me drop her, and count your blessings.’

Wayne took aim again. Farrah screamed and covered her eyes.

Bruce stepped in front of Wayne ’s gun. ‘Look, I don’t want her dead, all right? I don’t care what I may or may not have said in the past but I’m telling you now, I don’t want her to die and I don’t hate her! So if my opinion means anything to you, which you keep saying it does, I’m begging you, pleading with you, don’t kill her. Just leave her alone. Please!’

Wayne lowered his gun. ‘OK OK, just trying to do you a favour. No need to get worked up about it.’

At this point, to everybody’s surprise Brooke, who had appeared to be something of a spent force leapt across the room and jammed a pistol into the side of Scout’s head.

While all attention was focused on the debate about whether to kill Farrah, Brooke had been preparing to mount a counterattack. She had reached down into her bag, which still lay on the floor beside her crumpled pantyhose – the hose which she had removed so beautifully in an earlier and happier life. In the bag was the pistol with which Brooke had scared Bruce and won herself the promise of an audition for his next movie.

Brooke’s movement had been so surprising and so sudden that Scout had had no time to produce her own weapon from under the cushion and so was now very much at Brooke’s mercy. The balance of power in the room had suddenly shifted considerably.

‘Drop your gun right now, Wayne, you sadistic bastard,’ Brooke shouted, ‘or I’ll blow this sick little fuck’s brains clean across the room!’

Brooke was an intimidating figure, with congealed blood caked around her beautiful mouth, her glamorous gown torn and grubby, her body heaving with tension beneath the soiled satin. She had come a long way in a short time, and as Bruce could testify she had not been exactly without spirit in the first place. Now she seemed genuinely capable of anything.

Wayne certainly took her seriously. ‘Don’t you go pointing no gun at my baby, now.’ Slowly he swung his own gun away from Farrah and Bruce in order to cover Brooke. In reply, Brooke pushed her own weapon harder into Scout’s head. Scout winced.

‘Brooke, girl,’ said Wayne ‘you do know that if you kill Scout, you and Bruce and these other two will not get to draw one more breath.’

‘Maybe so, Wayne, but you love Scout, and I don’t love any of these shits. What is more, killing us will not bring your baby back if I have just put a bullet through her tiny brain – that is, always presuming I don’t fucking miss it altogether!’

It was a classic standoff. Any decent moviemaker would have spent a good two minutes lingering on every aspect of the scene. The tense trigger fingers, the narrowed, steady eyes, Brooke’s heaving bosom.

Wayne smiled. ‘You know, when this kinda thing happens in the movies – when two people are pointing pieces at each other and sweating and all – I always think to myself, what’s the problem? Why doesn’t one of them just quit talking and pull the trigger?’

Then Wayne shot Brooke.

The impact threw her backwards against the drinks cabinet like a rag doll, except rag dolls don’t have blood pouring from between their ribs.

‘I mean that has to be the sensible thing to do, hasn’t it?’

Brooke’s valiant fight back had ended as quickly and as surprisingly as it had begun. Now she really was a spent force. The gun had flown out of her hand as her body hit the cabinet, and she clearly would not be picking it up again. Indeed it seemed a good bet that Brooke would not be picking herself up again either.

Bruce wondered whether he was going mad. Two people had now been shot in his lounge inside one hour.

‘When is this going to end, Wayne?’ he asked.

For the moment, his sorrow was greater even than his fear. This splendid person, whom he had only just met, was dying. She had fought and fought again, far better than he had done himself, and now she was going to die before him, her only crime being to have left a party with the wrong man.

‘It’s gonna end soon, Bruce. ‘Cos what I got, you see, is a plan.’

Wayne crossed to the window and peered out across the magnificent grounds of Bruce’s mansion towards the outer gates.

‘And here they come.’