Self-Defense (40 page)

“Actually—”

“Forget it, Sammy. TV’s the only way to
go. They’re taking chances the studios won’t, and even though syndication’s not
the honeymoon it used to be, it’s still a serious game. Think you can write me
up a treatment—one or two pages? Let’s say by next Tuesday?”

“Sure,” I said, “but I want to discuss
some story elements with you first, make sure we’re talking the same language.”

“Story,” he said dismissively. “You’re the
writer. Give me good and evil, some conflict, resolution—maybe some martial
arts. Networks are ripe for martial arts, nothing decent since Kung Fu.
Musicians and nudists and evil. ’Course they couldn’t be shown nude, but you’ll
find some way to let everyone know they’re buck naked. Like a sly wink, know
what I mean? But respectful of the human body. Something women can get behind.
Good and evil. The characters arc, but they maintain their basic good-bad
nature. The more I think about it, the better I like it.”

He rubbed his hands together and stood.
“You got thirteen fucking minutes for the price of five, Sam.”

“You see Mellors as the evil lead?” I
said.

“If you make him white.”

“Can you tell me anything more about him
that would flesh out the character?”

“Nasty piece of work. Like I said, he
hated women, called them manipulative bitches. I took him in, after Sanctum
closed. Gave him a job because I felt sorry for him. He was working on a book,
couldn’t finish it.”

“Writer’s block?”

“
Money
block. Writer’s block was
Lowell’s
game. Talk about big talk, no action. Anyway, Denny came to me
begging because he knew I was a soft touch. Broke—he’d depended on Lowell. He was
writing this novel, gonna be the greatest thing since
Moby Dick
if he
could only finish it. Being a liberal do-gooder, I gave him a job with my
company in return for first refusal on the manuscript.”

“What kind of job?”

“Idiot work. Business Affairs office.
Writing memos, filing contracts, xeroxing. The idea was to free him up to
write. Then one day he waltzes in, announces no more book, it’s a screenplay
now. The story
lends
itself to that form. Fine, makes my life that much
easier. I wait six months, then six more.”

He walked to the bookcase. Eyeing the
shelves for a second, he pulled a thin unmarked volume out of the middle,
opened it, put it back, and removed another one, even thinner.

“This is what he gives me.”

I took the folder. Bound in brown, marbled
cardboard. The title page said:

THE BRIDE

A Screenplay by Denton W. Mellors

“Take it home,” said App. “I like you, but
you’re outa here. Got a meeting.”

I folded my notes and put them away. App
tossed the script I’d used for a writing board back into the trash. We walked
to the door.

“I haven’t been able to locate Mellors,” I
said. “Any idea what happened to him?”

“Who the fuck knows? After I told him I
couldn’t use that piece of shit you’re holding, he cursed me out, threw a
chair—broke some pre-Columbian pieces—and left. Last I saw of him, thank God.
Scared the shit out of me. First time I hired a bodyguard.”

We left the office and walked down the
postered hall past the empty reception desk. He opened a glass door and held
it.

“Nice meeting you, Sammy—what makes you
run, ha ha. Let’s both of us do some serious thinking about what we want out of
this, write something up, and then we can break some bread. Let’s say
Wednesdayish. Lunch?”

I walked over to the Century City shopping
mall, found a cafe with private booths, and sat down to coffee and Denton
Mellors’s script.

Not a complete script, it soon became
clear. Just a five-page triple-spaced summary, what App had called a treatment.

THE BRIDE

We open upon a man watching a woman
undressing. From his face we see he is a homicidal maniac, but handsome and
muscular. The kind of man women gravitate to.

He holds a boning knife. It is nighttime.
The moon hits it and it glints.

The maniac gets up from his crouch and
cuts through a sliding glass door. The woman is in the shower, soaping herself
up. We see soap on her breasts and her vagina. She is masturbating, enjoying
it.

The maniac flings open the shower door.
The woman screams as the maniac rapes the woman anally, then fillets her.

The maniac removes his clothing, showers
in the woman’s shower as the body still lies there. Then he gets dressed and
drives home to his marital bed. His bride is young, beautiful, clearly
virginal. She loves him madly. He is the love and lust of her life.

The maniac and his bride engage in
foreplay and the maniac makes tender love to his innocent young bride: he is
capable of great sensitivity when the situation calls for it. As she comes,
thunderously, the camera cuts to juxtaposed faces of the bride and the maniac’s
other savaged women—all of them his chosen. The bride’s prolonged, cataclysmic
orgasm alternates with their anguish. To the maniac, it is all music....

I managed to finish the rest of it,
resisting the temptation to stow it in the garbage.

Instead, I took it home and called Milo
the minute I got through the door. But he wasn’t at the station and I had to
content myself with leaving a message at Blue Investigations.

I tried Lucy in Brentwood. Phone off the
hook, probably sleeping again. Checking in with my service got me one message:
Wendy Embrey wanting to talk about billing problems. That irritated me, and I
didn’t bother to copy down her number.

I got a beer from the fridge and watched a
couple of surfers struggle to master infinity.

Mellors’s treatment screamed in my head
like a car alarm.

He and Lowell and Trafficant drawn
together not by art but by hatred of women.

Discovering common interests.

Slaking their needs together the night of
the party.

Lowell shutting down the retreat less than
a year later.

New use for his acreage?

Another type of cemetery?

Robin came home in a great mood and we
ended up in bed. I tried to keep the bad pictures out of my head, wondering if
I’d be able to make love.

When the time came, I did the right things
but my mind was still elsewhere, firing like a strobe light.

She fell asleep quickly, but I found
myself itching to get up. I lay there for a long time, not moving.

“Restless?”

“Maybe I’ll get up and take a drive or
something.”

She started to sit up but I kissed her
forehead.

“Rest.”

“Is everything okay, Alex?”

“Just one of those jumpy nights. You know
me.”

“Sometimes I wonder,” she said. But she
closed her eyes and pursed her lips. I kissed them and touched her eyelids with
my fingers. She gathered the covers around her head and curled up.

I sped past Broad Beach, Zuma, the Colony,
Carbon Beach. La Costa.

One very bright light shone above the
Sheas’ house. Two proto-Malibu cars were parked along the highway in front: a
Porsche bathtub roadster and a Corvette. Between them was an elderly Olds 88
that looked vaguely familiar. I pulled up behind the Corvette and was walking
to the front door just as it opened and a man backed out, stumbling.

I thought I heard a voice from inside the
house, but the combined roars of the highway and the ocean drowned out the
words.

The man approached the house again and I
got close enough to hear a woman’s voice.

“Go away! I’ll call the police!”

The man shouted, “Just you—”

“
Out
! Get the hell
out
! I’ll
call the
police
!”

The man stopped and folded his arms across
his chest. “Go ahead, Gwendolyn. Tell them you’re a murderer.”

Then he charged the door.

The woman screamed again. “You
bastard
!” The man stumbled again, shoved back with force.

Falling into a pool of lamplight.

Sherrell Best, in his dark suit and tie,
his hairless dome shiny as a ball bearing.

I was right in back of him now as the door
started to slam shut. He whipped out his right foot and managed to wedge it
between the door and the jamb. His ankle was trapped. He shouted in pain.

Threats and curses from Gwen Shea. No
backup from Tom, so she was there alone.

Best tried to pull his ankle free but it
was vise-gripped.

Gwen Shea kept screaming through the
crack. Putting her weight against the door, trying to crush the ankle.

I shouted, “Cut it out, he’s stuck!”

Her eyes spread with panic as she focused
on my face. She opened the door, kicked at Best’s leg as I pulled it free, and
slammed it shut.

Best lay there, groaning. I pulled him up
but when he stood on his right leg, he buckled and I had to support him.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said, trying to
pull him toward the Olds.

He shook his head. “I’m staying here.”

“What if she calls the police?”

“She didn’t, did she? Because she knows
she’s guilty. I can
smell
guilt.”

He folded his arms again.

“What if she has a gun?” I said. “This is
exactly how bad things happen.”

“Then she’ll add to her sins.”

“That won’t solve your problem.”

“Will anything else solve my problem?”

“That’s not a very religious answer.”

He looked away.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s talk about this
rationally. I’ve learned some things that may—”

He grabbed my sleeve. “What kinds of
things?”

“If you leave and promise not to confront
her again, I’ll tell you.”

He looked back at the house. Shook his
right leg and winced. Stared at the speeding cars, then once more at the house.
All lights off.

“I take that as a solemn oath,” he said.

“Tell me,” he said, sitting in the
driver’s seat and massaging his ankle.

“Do you need to see a doctor for that?”

“No, no, it’s fine. Tell me what you’ve
learned.”

“I need you to promise you won’t act on
it.”

“I can’t promise that!”

“Then I can’t tell you.”

“You swore!”

“It’s for your own safety, Reverend.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“I see that.”

His nostrils widened. For an instant he
looked like anything but a man of God.

“All right. I made a fool out of myself.
So did Elijah, coming down from the hills, raving at Ahab. So did Moses,
talking to a bush, and Jesus, consorting with the low and the needy—”

“Reverend, the last thing I want to do is
prolong your suffering. I want to find out the whole truth about Karen also.”

“Why?”

“For my patient,” I said, keeping it
simple.

“That’s hard to believe.”

“So was walking on water.”

He started to touch his sore ankle, then
stopped himself and brushed his fingers against the keys dangling from the
ignition. “If you really know something, tell me, doctor. Trust me to do the
right thing.”

“Not unless you promise not to act. Your
getting involved the way you did tonight will only slow things down.”

“Slow things down? Does that mean there’s
progress?”

“Some. I’m sorry, I know you’ve lived with
this for a long time, but it’s going to have to be a while longer.”

“A while,” he said, flexing his foot. “Why
did you come here tonight?”

“Because you’re probably right about the
Sheas knowing something. But if you get in the way, we may never find out what.
And I won’t tell you another word unless I’m sure you’ll cooperate.”

The pain in his eyes had nothing to do
with his leg.

“All right. I promise not to do anything
that gets in the way.”

“Nothing at all,” I said. “No contact with
anyone associated with the case until I tell you it’s safe.”

“Fine, fine. What do you know?”

“I consider
that
a religious oath.”

“I won’t swear needlessly, but you have my
word.”

I gave him some of it, leaving out names.
The growing possibility that something had happened to Karen at the party and
that Felix Barnard had learned about it, tried to profit, and died because of
greed.

A tremor of rage took hold of his face. He
forced himself placid. An unsettling calm, almost like death.