Restoration (18 page)

  "Well," said the stranger, "fancy seeing you three here!"

  "Shit." Tom stopped in his tracks, the other two following suit. "He shouldn't be here yet, right?"

  "It would appear our information is somewhat off kilter." Carruthers replied.

  "Why does that not surprise me?" Miles moaned.

  The stranger strolled casually towards them. "Not expecting to see me either then?" he said. "I do hope you haven't all abandoned my old address, I'd hate for the world to fall apart while I was busy trying to have fun on it."

  "Just the three of us," Miles said, "we needed to pop out for milk."

  The stranger chuckled. "Good old Miles, always reliable for a cocky remark in case one was short."

  "I try to please."

  "And you succeed! You really do." The stranger was right in front of them now, big easy smile, friendly as an uncle at a wedding. "But seriously," and the smile dropped, "what are you three up to, eh? Checking up on me is it?"

  "As if you didn't expect us to do just that," Carruthers countered.

  The stranger chuckled. "Actually, I rather thought you'd have had your hands full." He shrugged. "Not that I mind, nothing personal but I can't say your presence has me quaking in my shoes."

  "We might surprise you!" said Carruthers.

  Oh God, thought Miles, don't say things like that… all that does is encourage him.

  The stranger smiled again. "You think?"

  "Where's Chester?" asked Tom.

  The stranger glanced at him. "There really is very little in you but hate and cheap scotch."

  "And whose fault is that?"

  The stranger said nothing, just sighed and strolled back and forth in front of them as if thinking very long and hard.

  Miles felt a painful throb in his head, clapping his hand to it. Carruthers likewise. Tom didn't react, he was used to his brain popping at regular intervals. The stranger stopped pacing, having read all he needed to and thought on it briefly.

  "Charming," he said. "You really were hoping to put a stop to any antics I might have had in mind weren't you? Not much of a plan of course, but then, in all fairness, it's hard to scheme against Gods isn't it?" He smiled for the last time. "We're such a horrid and capricious lot."

  The pain having lessened, Miles looked around, noting that the diggers had stopped their engines, their drivers climbing out of their cabs and walking towards them. Other workers, those who had been measuring foundations or cutting wood, supervising the delivery of girders, concrete or hardcore, even the handful that had been taking a quick smoke or sharing coffee from thermos flasks: they all started walking in their direction.

 

Back in the Oldsmobile, Hughie Bones, who had been unable to resist craning his neck through the window to try and follow events, pulled his head in and closed the window. His hand hovered by the ignition key once more, undecided as to whether he wanted to leave or ram the car down there and try and provide a bit of support to the three guys. The radio suddenly clicked on, the stranger's voice interrupting the usual drive time rock to give a simple announcement. "Sit still, Hughie, try and remember whose side you're on, yes? Let the kid with the bottle have his fun."

 

"I think we're about to take a beating," said Miles.

  "A bad one." Tom agreed, shifting on the spot, cautious of someone sneaking up behind him.

  "Don't be so unimaginative," the stranger said. "If I wanted you torn apart I'd do it myself."

  As one, the workers stuck their hands in the air, like criminals in an old movie. Then, they dropped downwards as if the ground had vanished beneath their feet. In a way it had, liquefying and bubbling. It solidified again swiftly, every single worker now embedded in the soil. They left nothing but a thrashing garden of hands, like grapevines, twitching and clenching as their owners fought to breathe dirt.

  The stranger pushed his way past them and towards his car. "There's bound to be a few spades around," he said, "if you want to try and dig one up before he dies." He turned to face them. "You know, if you'd like to 'surprise me' with regards your abilities."

  He continued on his way to the car, not bothering to look back again.

  Miles began to run, looking for something to dig with.

  "There's no point," Tom said.

  "We have to try!" Miles dropped to the ground near the closest hand, scrabbling at the earth with his hands, bending back his nails as he tore at soil and grit.

  "You'd never get him out in time," said Tom, "that was the whole point."

  Behind them the engine of the Olds roared into life as it did a U-Turn and headed back out onto the highway.

  "Carruthers?" Miles was getting nowhere, grabbing the hand as it began to tire, spasming now rather than clenching with any strength.

  "I'm afraid Tom's right," Carruthers said, sitting down on the ground. "I antagonised him so he did this to put us in our place. Nothing so simple as hurting us physically of course, no… that would be too gentle for a creature like him. He has to stick the knife in where it will hurt us the most, right in our damned pride and consideration."

  All around them the hands were stopping their spastic dance. Drooping like unwatered plants, dead fingers dabbing the earth.

  "Fuck this," said Tom, walking back to the road.

  "Please, Carruthers…" said Miles, "
Roger
… we can't just leave can we?"

  Carruthers sighed. "We can't stay here either, not unless we want to answer lots of impossible questions. None of which will help these poor souls one jot."

  Miles knew this was true but, even as he got to his feet and began to walk away, he felt so worthless he could retch.

  "We knew this would be hard," said Carruthers, standing up and putting his arm around Miles' shoulder.

  "Hard I could deal with, this is just impossible."

  There was the roar of a car engine and Tom shot past them, haring up the highway.

  "Jesus!" Miles shouted. "That's perfect that is! Where the hell does he think he's going?"

  "I think I can guess," said Carruthers, "though I do hope I'm wrong."

  

 

"You nearly left me there didn't you, Hughie?" the stranger asked, stretched out in the passenger seat.

  Hughie thought about lying but really couldn't see the point. "Yeah," he admitted, "or try and get in the way of you hurting those others."

  The stranger nodded. "But you didn't, so I forgive you."

  "That makes it all alright then."

 

 

A few hours later, Tom drew to a halt and dropped his head against the steering wheel of his car.

  "Not like you Tom," came Elise's voice from the passenger seat. "Never had you down as a coward."

  "Shut up Elise," he whispered, "it's not about cowardice, it's about priorities."

  "And what priorities might they be?" she asked. "These priorities that see you abandon your friends by the side of the road."

  "No friends of mine."

  "Best you've got."

  "I've got you."

  Elise lit a cigarette from the dashboard lighter. "I'm dead honey, and the dead are lousy friends."

  "Not dead everywhere though, are you honey?" he said with a smile, sitting up and opening the driver's door.

  Elise stared out of the window. "You know, I never did visit Florida," she said, looking out at the sun. "Seems nice."

  "You didn't miss anything," Tom replied. "You know what they say about the place. This is God's waiting room… where people go to die."

  "I'd fit right in."

  "Not the Elise I know," he replied, getting out and slamming the car door behind him.

  He walked into the departures entrance of Tampa International, hoping Loomis' credit card still had enough life in it for a ticket to New York.

 
 

Leo drove Sepulveda Boulevard until his head had emptied and the tears that he would show no one had dried. By the time he pulled up outside the Van Nuys apartment block where he slept and dreamed of Burbank zip codes he was almost his old self. The groceries had grown warm on the passenger seat. He carried them up the external stairway and, once inside, dumped them on the kitchen sideboard to warm a little more while he drank a cool beer from the ice-box and smoked a cigarette over the balcony.

  "God bless the city of angels," he whispered, toasting the late Los Angeles afternoon with his Coors bottle, "and every motherfucker who sails in her."

  His stomach told him it needed feeding so he put some ragged Chinese takeout in the microwave and nuked it.

  Spooning noodles into a frowning mouth he channelsurfed for twenty minutes trying to find something – anything – that would stop his brain churning over for awhile. It was no good, his head was too noisy to be silenced by
Law and Order
or
Project Runway
. He dumped the empty Chinese carton and grabbed his car keys again, he would head out. He would go to the bench.

 

He'd first discovered the bench when hanging around the Forest Lawn Memorial Park; thinking, not for the first time, that dying was the most likely way of his settling in Glendale, just another LA district his pocket could only dream of.

  Forest Lawn had grown famous over the years, justifiably so, as cemeteries go it is certainly unusual, the "theme park of death" thought by many to epitomise this town and its hollow promises.

  Leo liked it though, often came here to walk the gardens and look at the statues. After all, where else could you hang out in such glittering company? Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart, Theda Bara, W.C. Fields… heroes, lovers and fools, all one beneath the dirt. Leo was by no means sure that he believed in a world beyond this one but he couldn't argue that the cemetery felt unearthly. From the sheer scope of the place – 300 acres of the sparkling dead – to the bizarre names of its plots –
Vesperland, Inspiration Slope, Dawn of Tomorrow
and – perhaps eeriest of all –
Babyland
, the heart shaped garden filled with infant remains.

  The bench wasn't far from
The Wee Kirk o' the Heather
, the chapel where Reagan had sealed the knot with Nancy (the spirits of his olders and betters no doubt laughing their asses off while he made his vows). It had wrought iron legs and a thick wooden seat and back rest (painted an evergreen almost luscious enough to eat). Every week or so he made a trip out there, took a lunch bag and
Variety
and filled his head with Tinsel Town plans.

 

The audition had been for a tiny part in a boxing movie featuring Gary Sinise. The usual trash…
Raging Bull
meets
Rocky
. Sinise, down on his luck after an accident in the ring, takes to drink and bare-knuckle sparring. Leo had been up for "Guy in Bar". He got in an argument with Sinise and ended up out cold on the pool table. Not exactly Shakespeare but a great bit of exposure and a chance to share screen time with a name (even if the guy seemed horny for TV these days). He'd been lucky to even hear of it, a phone call from a girl he'd screwed a couple of times, blabbing about how she'd gotten herself a part in the picture. He'd had to play it down of course but after bullshitting about how much he admired Sinise and would love to work with him she'd managed to get him on the list for auditions.

  "You owe me," she cooed, fluttering eyelashes she'd bought rather than grown.

  "You bet baby," he'd promised, knowing he'd never deliver. He hadn't liked her that much. She did this weird thing when she came – floods of tears every time, like she'd heard her mom was dead or something – shit like that puts a guy off.

  Not that he'd be working with her any time soon, there was
that
little piece of consolation.

  He'd been feeling positive, a genuine belief in his gut that his time was coming. Stood there in the brightly-lit rehearsal room, a thin, plastic cup of vended Cappuccino in his hand and a swagger to his walk, he had come face to face with the heavenly trinity of the movie audition: the casting director, the producer and – holy of holies – the director himself. The director was a young guy, maybe five or six years Leo's senior, who had made the transition from music promos to proper pictures via a surprise rental hit starring a zombie-battling Elisha Cuthbert. He finished scribbling his notes on the guy who had just left and, nudging the brim of his baseball cap with his pen, winked at Leo.

  "Hi Leo," he said, his eyes flicking down briefly to check the name from his notes, "good to see you."

  Leo smiled, trying to ignore the producer who was arguing with someone on his cell, keep it cool, keep it together…

  "Thanks, you too Mr Hickman."

  "Gerry, please, none of that formal shit."

  "Cool." Leo couldn't stop grinning, his lips shrinking back in a sudden wave of nervousness.

  "Tell him he can shoot in India for as long as he likes if he's willing to cover the bill!" the producer shouted.

  The cavernous room felt as airless as a closet. Leo could feel a small vein popping in his forehead. The casual grin of the director suddenly seemed predatory… the producer's voice deafening… the bored politeness of the casting director stuck in his gut like the worst rejection he had ever experienced… laughter in the schoolyard… Christ he was close to crying… get a grip!

  He took a sip of his coffee; it really was that or scream in their faces.