The Program

Chapter sixteen

When Tim and Dray got back from their morning run, the light was blinking on the answering machine. Tim hit the button and lowered himself into a chair at the kitchen table.

Will's voice filled the room. "Listen, this stylist just got in from the Friedkin thing in Prague. Bill assured me he's the top of the A-list. He goes by Luminar – it's a one-name thing. Anyway, he'll be at your house at nine."

"Luminar," Dray said. "Top of the A-list. Christ help us."

The machine beeped again, presaging the second message. "Hello, Timmy. Listen, I gave some thought to our talk about your mother's drafting table. I thought perhaps we could have lunch and make arrangements. Give a call."

Tim stared at the quiet machine. "Maybe he does have blood moving through his veins."

Dray leaned on the counter. "When our child died, the man didn't send us a card. He left the funeral early, as if he had somewhere to be."

"I'm not putting him up for beatification."

"And besides" – Dray, once she picked up steam, was not easily derailed – "I don't want your mother's desk in there."

"The room is so…empty."

"Maybe you shouldn't be so eager to fill it."

The doorbell rang.

"Goody," Dray said flatly. "That must be Luminar."

When Tim opened the door, a dainty figure stood at the doorstep facing the street, one arm cocked in a V, cigarette holder and smoking butt leaning from a sharply bent hand. Porcelain skin, narrow shoulders, a sweeping kimono of some sort. The shock of red hair taken up in a silk scarf did little to provide Tim with gender cues.

"Nice neighborhood," a soft, decidedly male voice purred. "It's so street."

Tim regarded the oversize metal box on the step distrustfully. "Luminar?"

"Actually" – the man swished around to face Tim, robe flaring, reddish eyes gleaming – "it's Lumin-yae." He halted. His splayed arm dropped. He seemed to descend from tiptoes, lowering in his fabrics, the regality departing. In a completely unaffected masculine voice, he said, "Tim Rackley?"

Tim blinked to refocus on the spectacle before him. "Pete Krindon?"

"Oh, thank God." Pete stormed past him, dumping his robe on the floor and snapping the cigarette from the holder. He sucked a deep inhale, eyes rolling with relief. "What the fuck are you doing, Rack?"

"You look like Liberace on the Zone and you're asking what I'm doing?"

Dray entered – a third baffled participant in the bizarre sketch. "Who's this?"

"Pete Krindon." Tim eyed him. "Or whatever name he's using this week. He's the surveillance guru Bear and I tap when we don't want to go through official channels."

"This guy? Luminar?"

"The r is silent," Tim and Pete said together.

Tim retrieved the makeup box and closed the front door. "What the hell are you into now?"

"Just doing this thing for this guy."

Pete Krindon, Master of Specifics.

"He wanted eyes on the inside. You'd be amazed the shit people tell stylists. Like, I really need to know who douches with Evian." Pete looked at Dray. "Sorry. Anyway, what better job for me? After working undercover all these years, I can run circles around the cosmopolitan-swilling pre-Stonewall stereotypes who call themselves makeup artists in Hollywood. They'd give their Jack Russell terriers for my skills."

Tim eyeballed his getup. "I'm doing some UC work myself. I've already made contact, so I can't show up a different person. I need some minor alterations, just enough that nobody I come across will recognize me from the media."

"Great shit, by the way," Pete said. "Last year. I was pleased to see you finally elected to pursue a more head-on means of conflict resolution." Tim couldn't adjust to the familiar voice issuing from the rouged face. "Okay. So we skew you a little. Who are you?"

"Thirtyish, earnest, wannabe hip, just came into some money."

Pete tapped a finger against his chin appraisingly. "Colin Farrell in Phone Booth meets Tobey Maguire in Spider-Man."

"Who are you working for?" Dray, occasional Us reader, had her interest piqued.

"That's not important." Pete's body suddenly transformed, limbs and joints angling to refashion Luminar's persona. "What is important" – a bored hand drifted out, finger swirling to spotlight Tim's sweats, T-shirt, year-old Nikes – "is that we get sister over here looking presentable."

Tim left the blue contacts at home and wore a baseball cap to hide his blond highlights and tweezed-back hairline, but his father's eyes zeroed in on the scruffy goatee right away. Pete had claimed that the facial hair would close off Tim's mouth and fill out his chin, and he'd shaped Tim's brows to alter the appearance of his eyes and forehead.

Tim's father rested his laced hands on the table, napkin in his lap, glass of water untouched, his stillness a mute criticism of Tim's three-minute tardiness.

Bracing himself for a put-down, Tim slid into the booth, nearly striking his head on a copper colander dangling from a ceiling hook. A clutter of wall – mounted black – and – whites showed hearty Italians sampling from tasting spoons, steering gondolas, whistling at girls. Franchise decor – Buca di Beppo by way of Pasadena. Tim's father had chosen the location, Tim assumed, to make convenient the retrieval of the drafting table from his nearby house.

They engaged in small talk until the entrees arrived, at which point his father steepled his fingertips over his steaming plate of linguini. "I'll tell you, Timmy. That community service is really wearing on me."

"I can imagine."

"You spoke to Carl. My P.O. That's how you located me, right?"

"That's right."

"How did you find him to be?"

Tim experienced the all – too – familiar sensation of getting lost in the labyrinth of one of his father's not-quite-hidden agendas. He answered warily. "Fine."

"He always liked you, didn't he?"

"I suppose so."

His father neatly cut up his chicken breast, drawing out the silence. "I thought maybe you could put in a word. You and he have some contacts higher up. I'd bet a few well-placed calls could get my hours reduced."

Tim pushed around his rigatoni with his fork; he'd yet to take a bite. "I don't think so."

"I see." His father took a sip of water, using his napkin to pick up the sweating glass. "You know, about that desk, I was thinking of holding on to it."

"Right."

"Memories of your mother." His father was studying him, his lips faintly curved to indicate the slightest touch of satisfaction.

Tim started to speak but caught himself. He shoved his rigatoni around some more until he could no longer contain the question. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course, Timmy."

"Clearly you take some enjoyment in" – he gestured with his fork – "this thing we do. Like it's reprisal for something."

"That's not a question, Timmy."

"What did I do wrong to you? As a son?"

His father speared a cube of chicken breast and chewed it thoughtfully. "You acted superior. All the time. Like my brother. You and the VIP, birds of a feather. It was there, built into your personality" – his mouth twitched with remembered abhorrence, a rare show of emotion – "as soon as you could move or walk or speak. This indomitable superiority."

An affliction ancient to Tim arose from its buried confines. It enveloped him, tingling across his face, dampening his flesh, constricting his lungs.

"I endured enough of it for one lifetime at the hands of the VIP. I never thought I deserved to encounter it in my only offspring."

Tim's throat felt dry – the words stuck on the way out. "You weren't much of a father to me."

His father studied him intently. "You weren't much of a son to have."

Tim sat in silence as his father cut and chewed. When the waiter passed their table for the third time, Tim's father raised a single finger to him, then gestured for the bill. He crossed his utensils neatly on his bare plate and wiped the corner of his mouth with his napkin.

When the check arrived, he pulled his fake eyeglasses from his pocket, set them low on his nose, and perused it. Removing the glasses and placing them beside his bunched napkin, he tapped his jacket pockets, then those of his pants.

Tim waited, knowing the routine.

"It seems I've left my wallet in the car. Would you mind?"

Tim may have nodded, he may not have. His father rose, administered a curt nod, and departed. Tim sat staring at his twinning reflections in the lenses of his father's forgotten prop.