KW 09:Shot on Location (14 page)

35.

Meanwhile, at the compound that day, all was peace and domesticity. The pool pump softly hummed; birds chirped and warbled. Bryce in his phlegmatic way was trimming shrubbery. Now and then he actually made a snip with the shears; the rest of the time he just stood there and admired the mysterious spiral patterns by which the leaves and fronds unfolded.

Joey stopped by, together with Bert and the misnamed chihuahua, and was pleased to find Donna safe and reasonably sound, sitting in an umbrella-shaded lounge chair near the hot tub. He asked how she was feeling.

“Like the fucking Queen of England,” she said. “Ace is taking care of me.”

Behind the blue-lensed sunglasses, Joey could not help flinching.

Bert, seeming a bit confused, said, “Ace? Isn’t that the guy we thought was gonna kill you yesterday?”

“It’s fine,” said Donna. “He loves me. He admits it now.”

When Joey’s face stayed skeptical, Donna gestured toward her feet.

“You don’t believe it? Look at my toenails. Bert, check out those goddamn cuticles. Gorgeous, right? He gave me a pedicure. I told him I was depressed about my toenails. They looked like shit and I couldn’t bend over to do them. So he did my toenails for me. On his hands and knees. I think that says something about the man. Don’t you?”

Just then the gate swung open and Ace stepped through, his massive body largely hidden by two swelling bags of groceries. Celery leaves and beet greens and carrot tops poked out of the sacks, reaching right up to his nose.

“Now he’s gonna make me juice,” whispered Donna, with just a hint of smugness. “Aren’t you, honey?” she said in a voice that wafted sweetly across the gravel path. “Aren’t you gonna make me some nice veggie juice?”

“Anything you say, baby. Anything to get you all fixed up.”

He walked over and said a surprisingly cordial hello to Joey. With some effort, Joey managed to respond more or less in kind. Then he introduced Bert. Ace heard the name, saw what the old man was wearing — a peach-colored silk pullover with parrot-green placket, sleeve trim, and monogram — and did a double-take, the way one does when walking down an ordinary street and seeing a celebrity. He said, “Bert? As in Bert the Shirt? Bert d’Ambrosia?”

“The same.”

“Hey, I hearda you.”

Bert looked down, almost shyly, but he beamed. As a young man it had been so important to him to be taken seriously. Then for a brief time he’d wanted to be feared. Now, as an old man, all he asked or hoped for was to be a little bit remembered.

“You’re like a legend,” Ace went on. “The guy who was allowed to retire from the Mob.”

Petting his dog, Bert said modestly, “I got out on a technicality. I died.”

“Died?”

“Heart attack. Courthouse steps. Ambulance. Flat-line onna graph. I figured I fulfilled my oath: Come in living, go out dead.”

Admiringly, wistfully, Ace said, “But you got out. That’s the main thing. Hey, I’d really like to talk with you. Can you stick around a while? I gotta put these groceries away. Anybody want some veggie juice?”

---

Jacqueline Mayfield, the whirlwind publicist, had been summoned back to L.A. on an early morning flight. As instructed, she went straight to Quentin’s office from the airport, and she found him looking awful. His complexion was sallow. There seemed to be more hints of gray hair on his temples than there’d been just a few days before. Behind his tint-shifting glasses, his eyes sagged slightly downward toward liver-colored sacs. Before he even said hello he said, “It isn’t working.”

“What isn’t working?”

“None of it. Come in and close the door.”

She stepped into the office. It was very L.A., large and bright yet still managing to be cheerless, sterile. White walls, glass shelves, two big windows overlooking Wilshire Boulevard. But there were no personal effects, no family photos, no goofy souvenirs. It was a lair beyond the reach of sentiment; it offered no clues about the person who worked in it and it killed nostalgia in advance. If a shift in fortunes were to sweep the current occupant from the privileged space, the walls would bear no memory that he had ever been there.

Jacqueline had barely settled into a chrome and leather chair when the producer went on. “The whole publicity angle,” he pronounced, “has been a failure.”

The publicist took this personally of course but saw no advantage in letting it show. Calmly, she said, “I thought it was going pretty well.”

“Very well,” he said, “if you were working for Candace McBride. But you’re not. You work for me.”

Jacqueline didn’t like his tone at all. “I work for the show. You came up with this approach. I did everything I was asked to do to launch it, and more.”

Quentin didn’t disagree but he didn’t give ground either. He gestured toward the stack of ratings reports and media clippings on his desk. “And this is the result. Candace is quickly becoming a household name and our numbers are going backwards.”

“Backwards? Come on, it was a tiny bit of an off week. There’s probably a lot of other factors--”

The producer didn’t want to hear about the other factors. “Flops,” he said, “are made of just slightly off weeks strung together. I’m not going to sit here and wait for that to happen. We’re reversing course.”

“Reversing course?”

“We’re pulling the plug on all publicity involving Candace. No interviews, no appearances, no nothing.”

“Quentin, wait a second. I’ve got like six more spots already lined up.”

“Cancel them.”

“I can’t cancel them. The shows are scheduled. The magazines are holding space. People will be furious.”

“Good. Blame Candace. Say she cancelled everything. Say she’s just too difficult. Make her poison.”

Jacqueline folded her big hands in her big lap and took a moment to stare out the window. She searched for temperate words but then said what she thought. “That’d be a really pricky thing to do.”

“Pricky? No. Practical. We built her up, we can bring her back to size.”

“But why? I think you’re making way too much of this one little blip. Can we please slow down a second? Can we talk it over?”

“No.”

“Have you run it by the suits, at least?”

Quentin had laid his hands flat on his desk and he now leaned over them and pressed as if doing some peculiar sort of pushup. Sinews stood out in his neck and the skin went white at the edges of his eyes. When he spoke again his voice was thin and shrill. “I don’t need to run it by the suits! You don’t talk to the suits when the numbers are bad.”

“They aren’t bad,” Jacqueline quietly insisted. “They’re just a little —”

“They’re bad!” Quentin yelled, slapping his desk and making pens and papers jump as he said so. The outburst left a queasy silence in its wake.

Very softly, Jacqueline said, “Are you all right?”

It was meant as a kindness but to the producer it seemed an intrusion and an affront. He shot his publicist an acidic glance. “I’m fine,” he said. “I’m running a show. I’m taking care of business. There’s a lot you just don’t understand.”

“Apparently.”

The simple dry remark seemed to mollify him somewhat.

“Listen,” he said, “this is an ensemble show. It doesn’t work to have someone break out of the pack the way she has.”

Finally unable to contain her exasperation, Jacqueline swelled in her chair and said, “Then why’d I work my ass off to make that happen?”

Scrambling now, as he did when cornered, Quentin said, “It was … let’s call it an interim strategy. But it’s over now. It’s changing. We’re going to be playing off of it, giving it a twist.”

“A twist?”

“The Lulu character will be getting less important.”

“Less important? And when did this get decided?”

The producer didn’t answer, since it hadn’t really been decided until he said it.

“Less important?” the publicist said again. “After the way we’ve put her front and center? That makes no sense.”

“Oh but it does,” said Dole, picking up momentum. “It makes perfect sense. It brings the focus back to the group. To the show itself. Don’t you see?”

There was a pause. Quentin reached quickly for a pen, grabbed a random piece of paper and excitedly began to scribble down notes.

More animated now, he went on, “From here on in she recedes, she shrinks. There’s a lesson in it, part of the mythology. She put herself before the group, and there are consequences. Serious consequences. Maybe … maybe she even has to die.”

“Die? You’d kill off the most popular character? You’d write her out of the show?”

The producer no longer seemed to be listening. His head was down, his glasses were glinting light and dark, and he just kept scrawling notes. Jacqueline watched him for a while then slipped out of the office. He didn’t seem to notice that she’d left.

36.

Claire’s luxurious rubbing of sunblock into Jake’s neck and back and shoulders had given rise to some lovely daydreams full of promise but had come too late to spare him from a sunburn. By the time he got back to the compound, his skin felt papery, he itched around his hairline, and he had owlish pale circles where his sunglasses had been.

On a mission, he rolled the purple bike into its accustomed slot and went straight over to Donna’s cottage, where he discovered a somewhat improbable tableau. Donna was sprawled out on the sofa, regally propped on pillows, sipping something green through a straw. She had a chihuahua on her lap, its chin and paws propped on her thigh. Bert the Shirt was relaxing in a love seat next to her, taking little nips of the same green liquid and trying to look happy about it. Ace was in the kitchen. He was wearing a pink apron printed with a pattern of little blue pots and pans that seemed to be floating gently through space. The apron covered only a narrow swath of his torso and its strings barely stretched around his back. He was deeply involved in an elaborate process of breading fish fillets, first bathing them in egg, then dredging them in flour, then egg again, then bread crumbs.

After a round of greetings, Jake said, “Sorry to barge in like this, but Ace, we have to talk.”

Before Ace could answer, Donna said, “Would you like some veggie juice?”

“No. No thank you.”

Ace said, “How about a beer?”

“Sure. Yeah. That’d be great.”

Nodding toward the fridge, the big man said, “Help yourself. I’m all covered with egg and shit.”

Jake grabbed a beer. “Thanks. But listen, there’s something we have to--”

“Want to stay for dinner?” Donna asked. “Ace is really a good cook. We were just talking about that, saying that’s what he should do from now on. Cook. Be a chef. Bert thinks it’s a good idea. Don’t you, Bert?”

“Lotta tough guys cook good.”

“Ace’s Place,” Donna said. “Good name, right? Can’t you just see it, Jake?”

Absently, Jake said, “Yeah. Great idea. But the reason I came over —”

“Try some grouper. You’ll see how good it is.”

“The reason I came over is that I need to know who hired Ace to grab that script.”

Donna groaned and shifted on her pillows. “Oh Christ, this is where I was afraid you were going. This again?”

“Yeah, this again.”

Ace dangled a fillet above a frying pan then gently swung it so that it made a perfect entry into the bubbling butter. Within seconds a heady fragrance filled the cottage.

Still trying to deflect, Donna said, “He puts nutmeg in the breadcrumbs. That’s the secret.”

“Fascinating. But about the script —”

Patiently, Ace said, “I thought we been through this. I don’t think it’s a good idea I tell ya.”

“Maybe it’s a good idea, maybe it isn’t. But it’s important.”

Ace didn’t ruffle. It was Donna who got exasperated. “For fuck’s sake, Jake, everything’s fine now. Why are you still —”

“Because everything isn’t fine. Look, no offense, but I used to think Ace was the bad guy here. If he was, this would have been a pretty simple story. But he isn’t. So the story turns out way more complicated.”

“Story?” Donna said. “You think of all this as a story?”

Jake might have blushed but it was hard to tell through the sunburn. He felt a little caught, like the way he’d felt when Donna had seen him watching her swim naked. He said, “Sorry, I think of everything as a story. It’s just my way. My way of trying to make sense of things.”

Donna seemed to accept that. Ace, starting in on a second batch of fish fillets, said nothing. Bert took the opportunity to stop pretending he was drinking the veggie juice and to put the glass down on a table.

Jake sipped some beer and went on. “Look, weird stuff’s been going on. Accidents that probably weren’t accidents. You with the boat. Now Candace has been stung by a scorpion.”

The stuntwoman, accustomed to the workday hazards of scrapes and sprains and broken bones, didn’t seem particularly impressed. “Shit happens. Scorpions aren’t exactly rare down here.”

“Except this one was planted. Know how I know? Someone left behind a marked-up page from the script.
Your
script, I’m guessing. It looks like someone’s out to torture her. Drive her nuts. Hurt her worse. Who knows?”

Fish sizzled softly in the pan. Ace, vigilant in his work, took small light-footed steps, boxer’s steps, in front of the stove.

Donna said, “Candace getting tortured. I probably should be happy but I’m not.”

Jake, misinterpreting, said, “Yeah, I think she’s really shook.”

“That isn’t what I meant. I mean it’s looking like that horseshit publicity angle is turning out to be true. Like it’s been all about that prissy bitch right from the beginning.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” said Jake. “Look, the person who planted the scorpion must have had a boat. So it might be the same lunatic who ran you over. That’s what I’m trying to figure out and why I need to find this person and figure out what her deal is.”

Seeming to come out of a light stupor or momentary nap, Bert suddenly said, “Her? Did you say her?”

“Right,” said Jake. “The sister of Candace’s old boyfriend from L.A. Who killed himself when she dumped him.”

“Sister,” Bert murmured. “Family vendetta. That’s not good. The brother — you say he’s dead?”

“People who kill themselves generally are.”

“That’s not good,” Bert said again. “Family shit, it’s never really over. My guess, she’ll end up icing her. Or trying, at least.”

The mention of icing dug a deep trough in the conversation. It was Donna who dared to step across it first. She said to Jake, “Listen, I think you’re making way too much of this. I got in the way of a boat. Candace got bit by a spider. Now you’re making it sound like some big murder revenge thing.”

“I’m not making it anything. It’s there. Right in front of us.”

“You have an active imagination, Jake. It’s part of your charm. But wherever you’re going with this, leave Ace out of it. He’s finished with those people. He’s gonna be a chef. Whatever happens from here, it has nothing to do with him.”

Trying not to scratch his sunburn, Jake searched for a response but found none. None turned out to be needed.

Silently, resignedly, without fanfare, Ace had started taking off his apron. He labored with his bulky arms to untie the strings then coaxed the dainty pastel garment up over his leonine head. He said, “Sorry, baby, but it has a lot to do with me.”

“No it doesn’t,” she shot back.

“Yes it does,” he quietly insisted. “Stupid me is the guy that grabbed the script in the first place. What if what happened to you was my fault? I couldn’t live with that. Or what if this Candace broad gets whacked?”

“Let her. I don’t give a rat’s ass about that.”

“You don’t mean that, baby. Maybe you wish you meant it, but you don’t.” To Jake, he said, “Tell me what you need to know.”

Jake said, “The woman who bought the script. I need to know how to find her. That’s all.”

Ace nodded, looked wistfully at the perfect fish fillets he wouldn’t get to eat, and felt in his pockets for his car keys. He walked into the living room and kissed Donna gently on the forehead. Then he asked his new idol, Bert the Shirt, the gangster who got out and lived to tell about it, if he felt like taking a ride.