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Among the stranger allegations in the piece was that Hector was a cannibal, and indeed the accompanying photos in the article showed an intense smile, complete with teeth that seemed almost sharpened. It was too fucking strange.

Further inglorious acts, the article implied, included Hector stabbing his wife, causing her death by massive infection days later. Ultimately, it was ruled involuntary manslaughter with extenuating circumstances and commonly viewed as a miscarriage of justice owing to his links to the palace. From there, Hector had directed a rumored snuff film for a royal to enjoy.

In the video, an oriental girl had been murdered after being tied up and brutally raped by a group of men wearing masks. In the finale of the maniac gem, a bottle had been broken over her soft, young forehead, then used to cut her up, inside and out. The article went to pains to say it was unconfirmed Hector had directed it. But many of the angles and camera moves bore striking resemblance to his idiosyncratic style: the entire video screamed Hector. It was allegedly titled “Broken Bottle,” and a popular underground classic. The article’s version of Hector’s filmic evolution opted to refer to earlier films as profitable “misjudgments.”

As Alan let the waiter take his plate away, a large man with a Vandyke and shoulder-length hair lumbered across
the dining room, led by the maitre d’. He was dressed in black and extended a multiringed hand.

“Alan,” said the man, in a breathless Ringo growl, “my god, I’m so sorry. Hector Lee. I feel absolutely awful. Got tied up coming down from Montecito. Big car accident, terrible traffic.” He gestured embarrassment. “Were you waiting long? Please say you just got here, I don’t think my heart could take it. It’s a huge pleasure to meet you …”

He lifted a warm smile and sat, rolling his sleeves up, then down; a nervous mannerism. Alan quickly noticed a nose softened to a red ottoman by Dewar’s and battery dust. Hector dabbed his forehead with a cloth napkin and grinned; a corroded survivor. He ordered a tomato juice and looked Alan in the eye, happily. His hair was tangled and flecked with gray and he forked it from his eyes.

“My god, we’ve got so much to talk about. This pilot you’ve written is fucking brilliant! Let me just pick something here and we’ll get right to it.”

Alan watched Hector absorb the menu and sensed something decent about him. He liked the passionate eyes. The warm zeal he used for conversation. Even felt himself wanting to forgive him, for all his storming adventures and strange choices, if they were true. He wanted to believe this troubled, recovering man wasn’t responsible for a girl being murdered on camera and even agreed to share a small bowl of raspberries with Hector, who said he was a vegetarian.

By the time Jordan had returned, Alan and Hector were laughing. Hector told Alan he loved the pilot script for “The Mercenary” more than anything he’d read in
ten years. His notes were well presented, thoughtful, and made Alan realize Hector understood his vision.

Hector suggested they find a strong second-unit director to do the action stuff so Hector could concentrate on the character shades and Alan agreed. Hector alluded to several small changes. They were perceptive and positive. Alan instantly agreed to them all.

“… the trick to making this pilot genuinely overwhelming, is to play it
absolutely
real,” said Hector with massive enthusiasm.

Alan nodded. “And it should have a kind of moral ambivalence … the audience must question their own morals about violence and sexual frankness …”

“Oh, absolutely! Absolutely!” Hector was nearly yelling. “This has to be tough. But it must explore values and social assumptions about violence. If it’s a stunt show … or a bloodbath … it becomes dim-witted … becomes, I don’t know … sort of pornography. Same with the sexuality, don’t you think?”

“… no, that’s right. It really has to look and sound and feel dangerous. But it must comment all along … have an editorial conscience, just as the script does.”

Yes. Hector agreed. He even said he thought Alan was a brilliant talent and that didn’t hurt relations. At one point, as Jordan caught Alan’s eye and winked, liking the way things were going, Hector used Visine and shut his own eyes, tightly.

He rubbed them hard and they remained shut for a minute or so. As the closed lids trembled, Alan sensed Hector was thinking about odd things. Things Alan didn’t
even want to imagine. But despite himself, he liked Hector.

For so brief a meeting, things felt unusually good. Except with everything Alan knew about his background, he didn’t really trust him.

Maybe it was the faintly sharpened teeth.

A
lan locked his door, gripped the wheel.

What was the fucking problem? He’d accidentally cut him off and this nut was jacked, flipping him off; a six-pack jammed in a Stetson. Alan took a breath; scared. Looked into his rear view; the huge pickup was on him, lights flashing angrily. A signal ahead changed and Alan ran the red. The truck followed, primered body tanking through intersection, ignoring horns.

Alan raced through Malibu Canyon, toward the beach and the truck hung tight; filling mirror. It moved to pass, ran alongside him. The fat face looked over, grinning I-really-want-to-hurt-you deadness. He tried to swerve into Alan’s Porsche and Alan turned the wheel to the right, dodging. The face looked over, furiously, teeth bared. Tried again. Alan floored it, raced ahead, scared.

The canyon tunnel was just beyond the next curve
and he could see it as the big tires of the truck wailed alongside. It pressed closer, bullying the Porsche to the shoulder, wanting him to go over the side.

“… suck
me,” Alan hissed.

What next? Was the guy ready to whack him over a mistake? Alan tried to dial 911 to get a cop, trying to watch the road. Fast busy signal. Canyon; a coffin.

The tunnel was ahead and Alan was out of shoulder, road, time. He slammed on the brakes, skidded through dirt. Sat in exhaust and dust; a gas chamber. Frantic boot-steps. A sweating face at his window.

Alan stared forward, didn’t move, trembling. He could jam the 928 in reverse, floor it; maybe there was room, maybe he—

“Get out!” Pounding window.

The engine died. Wouldn’t start.

The man came around, peered in through windshield. Alan looked down, avoiding, afraid. The man tapped with false calm; fingertip rain.

“Now.
”

“Go away.” Mouth dry.

The man became furious. Grabbed a big rock, smashed the driver’s window, reached through, opened the door. Yanked Alan out. Alan stood before him, paralyzed. Tried to get mad but couldn’t. Tried to fight back, resist; handle it. Wanted to talk reason; somehow be friends. But he couldn’t move, a terrified child.

“Don’t like the way you drive, asshole!”

A shaking voice. “… it was a mistake. I’m sorry. Please, let’s just—”

The man threw Alan against the hood, then dragged him over to the truck. Made him look into the truck cabin.

“Apologize to my girlfriend, you sonofabitch!”

A girl, nineteen, sat on the torn seat, nervous; embarrassed. Alan apologized but could see in her eyes how afraid she, too, felt. How impotent. He saw in her eyes what he knew she saw in his.

She looked like she might try to say something to make the guy stop, but Alan was suddenly punched in the gut, and stared up from ground at cowboy boots, coming closer. A boot was on his throat, the face started to put weight on it. Grinned, enjoying, glancing at his girlfriend for a praising look. But she had turned away, hating this. Alan couldn’t breathe; began to black out.

Alan’s eyes opened.

His body ached. He tasted blood and stared at a black wall with little raised words on it. Focused, realized it was his front tire. He rolled over, slow pain. Traffic whooshed in and out of the nearby tunnel. Horns echoed; teenagers.

He tried to get up, suddenly saw the truck was still there. Jerked back. Eyes searching. Was the Stetson waiting for a second attack? Went to take a leak? Come back and shove him over the side? Tie him to his steering wheel, cram a gas-soaked rag in his mouth, light it; push the car over the cliff? Alan crawled toward his Porsche, terror rising. Wanting to escape. Then, he heard it. Soft crying.

He stopped, stunned. Swallowed blood.

Legs protruded from bushes, beside the Porsche. Pants torn, red oozing onto boot embroidery. Alan slid toward him. He was bloody, unconscious. Clumps of his hair had been ripped out. Several fingers were bloated
blue; snapped. Eyelids swollen. One ear hung partially from the head. There were bite marks.

The girl sat cross-legged in dirt, cradling him.

Alan stared in confusion; didn’t remember a fight. Had she tried to stop it and the guy hit her? Did she stagger back to the truck and take a tire iron, fight back; totally lose it? He couldn’t think straight. Could only remember being knocked out.

He tried to say something to her and she looked up. Began to scream. She told him to stay away; threw a rock at him. She said he’d almost killed her boyfriend. Alan didn’t understand, then looked at his own hands; knuckles bloody. Skin and hair under nails. He felt sick; lost. It was impossible.

He’d never been in a fight in his life.

S
tare glazed. Fingers plucking sofa fabric. Voice trying to water down deep fires.

“… you know, these network people … they just sit there and expect you to solve every problem they’ve created for themselves. Their crops wilt and you’re the savior who’ll reverse their dead schedule. Correct their bad choices. It just offends me. But you can’t tell them. They’ll punish you … politically fuck you.”

A sip of water. Feeling dust crawl over tongue and gums. Feeling irritable. Sounding calm.

“I try so hard to be fair, you know? But what’s the point? It’s like … I mean, Andy Singer is a barely fertilized
egg
and he hasn’t got clue one about innovation or quality. I mean, he’s ten fucking years old.”

An amused note taken.

“I’m only exaggerating a little. These are people who should be worried exclusively about clearing up their complexions and they’re running fucking networks. And I just act very friendly … but inside I’ve got this constant, running commentary going about which mind near me is most vacant.”

Silence. Two men, in a two-man church.

“Some of the things that little prick said in the pitch meeting the other day. When he said my friend Eddy, who’s dying, was nothing to him. Like he never existed. Like his whole life never happened.”

Face flushing. Fingers pointing; guns.

“I wanted to just …”

Styrofoam cup torn; skinned alive. A quick glance.

“I tell you my dad called me? It was strange …”

A haunted distance.

“Everything is strange …”

A lost smile.

T
he room was dim, padded like a psychiatric observation chamber. Five rows of thickly upholstered living-room chairs faced a huge screen, and the projectionist remained in the room behind, taking orders by intercom.

Two network panzers sat in the middle row, sipping coffee and talking about the latest gossip trickling in from CAA’s annual confront weekend, in Palm Springs, where all the agents spent two days telling each other the truth, in a way that sounded good.

Alan sat beside Marty and “The Mercenary’s” pilot second-unit director, Bo Bixby, a muscular, former stuntman who looked like a Norwegian Norman Mailer. Bo favored dressing in a smoky gray flight suit; a stoic obelisk. Alan called him “the line you draw between madness and fearlessness,” and Bo loved that.

He’d quit working as a stuntman after turning both knees to cheap hinges in a high fall off the Century Plaza Hotel for an episode of “Knight Rider” where Kitt the talking car got infected gaskets or some inspired twist a nation hungered to see.

Bo was famous for helicopter falls into airbags and always spoke very softly, as if his larynx was turned to 1. He’d become a second-unit director, handling the stunts and action the first-unit guys didn’t want to bother with for reasons of time or esthetics. Bo had done a million big action pictures and was one of the best. His footage got in your face with urgent realism.

A row in front of him, sat the two editors, Jack and Jackie, a married couple, who listened for which takes the producers preferred, so a fast first assembly could be managed and the network could see an early cut ASAP.

They were all there to see the first set of dailies and waited for Hector, who was late.

“Let’s run ’em for you guys,” Alan suggested. “I’ll run ’em again for Hector when he shows.”

“He must’ve stopped off to hallucinate somewhere,” cracked Greg Gunnar, network liaison number two, to Scot Bloom, network liaison number one. They both had happy little Montessori faces and were twenty-four and twenty-six.

“Yeah, exactly …” added Scot.

Alan buzzed the projectionist. “Brace yourselves, boys and girls,” he said.

Scot squooshed down into the chair, feet on the chair-back in front of him, loafers kneading. The lights came down and the screen was suddenly filled with huge underwater closeups of dead faces, eyes staring.

The camera did a slow creep through harsh glare, from one corpse to the next, and 747 windows could be seen in backgound, ghostly ovals. Glassy eyes and drowned stares anchored floating hair.

“Love scene …?” Gunnar delivered it just right and scattered chuckles rumbled in darkness.

“… very eerie, Alan.” Scot was watching, tilting his head in a troubled posture, repelled; drawn.

“… little camera jiggle there,” said Marty, jotting notes onto a clipboard with a tiny light attached. “Second take should be better.”

Alan nodded. Liked what he was seeing.

He and Hector had been arguing about the look of this scene two days earlier and though Bo offered to shoot it, Hector wanted first crack. Bo agreed to set up the big tank on the back lot, gather stunt people who’d descend into the sunken fuselage cutaway, in passenger clothes, be seat-belted in, then wait for the divers with oxygen until the camera tracked past. Finding a kid actor who was a qualified diver to play the dead boy and getting parental sanction had been a bitch.