The Bones (33 page)

Clay Porter, another detective, sticks his crew-cut head in the door. "Faron, can I see you?" he asks, not looking at anyone
else in the room but especially not looking at Otis.

"Ticktock," Otis says to Faron, pointing at his watch. Faron leaves them alone and Otis takes a candy tin from one of his
pockets, holds it open for Frank to peruse its contents. "Care for a mint? Myself, I like to feel fresh when I tangle with
the police."

Frank, letting his nervousness show for the first time as he takes a piece of candy, asks Otis, "Aren't you worried about
pissing these guys off?"

"You want a lawyer who's going to win the good sport award or one who's going to keep you out of the joint?" Frank nods, getting
Otis's point. He looks at the lawyer roiling the mint around in his mouth, cool as a meat locker. "I saw your act last night,
man. I was there. That was some funny shit about Elvis and black people."

Faron steps back into the room. "Did a little search on you, Frank. I see you're from Los Angeles." It's not an observation
that demands a response and he sits back down. "Let me tell you something, boy. This sort of thing might go down in L.A. but
you're in Tulsa now."

"Detective Pike's seen too many bad movies," Otis tells Frank, eliciting a grin. Then, turning to Faron: "Drop the hard-ass
act, Pike. This ain't Wayman French you're talking to."

"Who?" Frank asks.

Otis tells him, "These boys had a talk with old Wayman, next thing you know the minister's saying, 'What a shame, what a shame,'
the choir's singing 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.'" Frank immediately gets the drift. Clay Porter has come in on the tall end
of the conversation, leaving the door open behind him. He's holding a computer printout.

"OL" Wayman had a heart attack, Otis. You know that," Clay says. "Was in the papers." Then, turning his attention to Frank,
Clay observes, "You were busted in Cleveland five years ago for discharging a firearm in a theater," which comes out
thee-ater.

"I believe that case has been adjudicated," Otis informs him as Frank nods in assent, impressed that Otis has done his homework.

"Like to play with guns?" Clay asks, taking a seat next to Faron.

"You don't have to answer that," Otis tells Frank. Then, to the cops: "Would you two confine yourselves to serious questions,
please?"

Frank is wondering if the cops know who he is, where he stands professionally. He can't help thinking that if this unfortunate
business had occurred around the time his HBO special was on, they would be more deferential. He decides to try a little tactical
reconnaissance.

"You guys get cable?"

"Too expensive," Faron says.

"How about you, babe?" Frank asks Clay, who is not accustomed to being addressed as "babe" by a man.

"Yeah, I get it," Clay says, not looking up from the computer printout he's reading.

"What do you watch?"

"Porn, mostly. So, Frank . . . " Now Clay is running his index finger down the printout. "Reckless endangerment and carrying
an unlicensed weapon. What about that high-speed chase in Los Angeles where two officers got hurt? What was that about?"

"I was late for an appointment."

"Says here there was a crash."

"It's my business they can't drive?"

Trying to regain control of the situation, Otis says, "Could we stick to the events of last night, please?"

Frank is relieved when Faron and Clay exchange a look and abruptly get up to leave, saying they'll be back in a minute. When
they're out of the room, Otis reassures Frank, "They ain't got shit, their mamas ain't got shit, and their daddies ain't got
shit." As Otis is saying this, someone walking past the open door draws Frank's glance. It's Mercy, who meets his eyes but
keeps moving, her expression giving no indication of what she's thinking. Frank wonders if she knows who killed Tino and whether
she had anything to do with it. As he is cogitating on this, the detectives reenter. Faron is carrying a shoe box, which he
places on the table as he and Clay sit back down. Clay holds another computer printout.

"You ready to sign a confession?" Faron asks with a confidence that surprises Frank, not sure if the detective is joking.

"Sure," he says. "I was the one who pushed Humpty Dumpty."

Faron opens the box and removes a gun. "Recognize this?"

"No."

"It was found in the glove compartment of a car."

Clay, reading from the printout, says, "The vehicle was rented by Milo Baylis. He's an associate of yours?"

"My road manager," Frank replies, dreading where this is going.

"Seems ol' Milo was on Southwest Airlines Flight 29 outta here last night. That flight left at eight P.M. and the coroner
says Suarez was killed after midnight, so we don't think Milo Baylis did it, is what we're sayin' here, Frank. Detective Pike
and me, we're thinkin' you were driving that car illegally, which is not good either . . . but that's the least of your troubles
right now. Anyway, what it is we're thinkin' is this: you shot Tino and stashed the gun in the glove compartment."

Frank feels as if he's been punched, but Otis doesn't skip a beat. "Did you have a search warrant for that vehicle?" he asks.
Faron and Clay remain silent. "You boys think you can get away with anything. This time I'm gonna put your asses on trial."

"We'll see you in court, Mr. Cain," Clay says, trying not to smile. "Put out your hands, Frank."

"Why?"

"Because you're under arrest for the murder of Tino Suarez."

Truly, when Frank was suffering through his court-mandated ninety days at Four Winds, he didn't think he could sink any lower.
How could life become more unbearable than being locked up with a bunch of substance abusers who had taken it to such an art
form they now required round-the-clock supervision as adults? Yet that kind of thinking, the kind that allows someone to believe
things can't get worse, is, in this indifferent universe, always a trap. Because no matter how awful things are, how out of
control it all seems, make no mistake, bullet wounds can become gangrenous, tumors declared inoperable; any given situation
can indeed get worse; and right now no amount of smile therapy courtesy of Naomi Glass is going to make the feeling Frank
has of utter existential helplessness go away. Frank's forehead gently descends to his upturned palm.

It starts as a flicker, but it quickly builds in intensity until the light bursts, fragments, and becomes a series of fission-generated
sparks, growing, building in intensity until they coalesce into a pounding strobelike hammer against the inside of Frank's
skull, waking the slumbering beast which then lurches from the cool darkness of its resting place at the base of the neck
and, thrusting its thick limbs against the side of Frank's head, fights its way through the constricting cells and crashes
into the ocular nerve, creating such a vicious internal compression that Frank nearly collapses onto the table. It is with
a superhuman effort that he remains erect and able to hear the simple piece of information that Detective Pike imparts.

"Officer Melendez is going to book you."

Frank's thinking,
Where'd that gun come from? Could Milo have left it there? What was Milo doing with a gun? Was the gun even Milo's? Maybe
it was mine. Did I bring it and not remember? Did I use a gun last night? All I remember was drinking and passing out and
then thatfamily-size SOB showed up at my door . . .

Moments later Frank, wearing handcuffs, is standing in the hallway of the police station with Otis, who is telling him, "We
got this beat." Inside of Frank's head, meanwhile, things have quieted down as the initial shock of the circumstance has been
absorbed. The beast, such as it is, has lain back down where it warily awaits further provocation. A slightly overweight white
guy, wearing a fine charcoal suit with a red, white, and blue tie and wing tips, comes scurrying up with his hand extended.

"Mr. Bones!" Patriotic Wing Tips says. "Roscoe Barnwell." Seeing Frank is handcuffed, he lowers his own paw, saying, "What's
going on?"

"What does it look like is going on?" Otis says in a tone he reserves for annoying white men.

Ignoring Otis, Roscoe asks Frank, "Did you talk to the police?"

"Who are you?" Frank inquires, the man's name not ringing any bells, thinking,
Maybe he's a reporter.

The Latino uniform who had been watching Frank from the desk earlier, Melendez presumably, approaches and takes Frank by the
elbow. "Let's get you booked," he says, using the word in a context Frank had hoped to never hear again.

"Hold, hold, hold," Otis says, jumping in.

"I'm your attorney," Roscoe tells Frank. "Your manager called me. Robert Hyler."

Frank, slightly puzzled at this, turns from Roscoe to Otis and asks his aspiring representative, "He did?"

"Excuse us," Otis says quickly, yanking his client aside and whispering, "Who do you want defending you? Some wing-tip-wearing
motherfucker in a red, white, and blue tie who's gonna blush when he sees your act or a black man who feels what you got to
say in his gut?"

"Are you really an attorney?"

"What kind of condescending question is that?" Otis barks in a whisper, his face inches from Frank, who smells his minty breath.

"Excuse me," Frank says to Otis, turning to Roscoe and telling him, "I already have an attorney." Then, to Otis: "If I get
the chair, you're fired."

Chapter 14

Lloyd is in shock. Numb, jaw-dropping, thunderstruck shock. It's the next morning in Los Angeles, around ten o'clock, and
he sits in his office staring at his computer screen, his mind pinwheeling with the velocity of a turboprop.
Happy Endings
is not shooting today, and there are a few minutes to kill between meeting with the costume designer about the padded bra
Dede Green has requested in order to compete with the bustier and hence more popular Jacy Pingree (request gladly granted)
and a weekly nonerotic massage he has scheduled to keep himself from imploding with stress. He is using this stolen moment
for an Internet surf, and as he logs on to the news site he visits daily to remind himself that a world exists outside the
little comedy bunker in which he's marooned, he is gobsmacked with the news Frank could be facing the gas chamber, the headline
as simple and devastating as an old western death ballad: COMEDIAN FRANK BONES TO BE CHARGED WITH MURDER.

Lloyd reads the accompanying article, which contains a sketchy version of Frank's sordid story, and is filled with a mixture
of wonderment and revulsion. Lloyd has been of the opinion Frank couldn't outdo himself, and here, not even four months later,
he has already surpassed his standard for excess. While Lloyd is dealing with interfering network executives, egotistical
actors, and no-talent directors, all of whom are laboring mightily to turn out forgettable pabulum designed to do nothing
more ambitious than sell a wide array of consumer goods and services to a benumbed public, what is Frank doing? Frank is creating
a desperate American flameout of truly epic proportions, a Roman candle of a life shooting hot colors, bright and lurid, into
the infinite night sky; a life that would be dissected for years to come by those fascinated with the feverish, dark corners
occupied by doomed men and women whose troubles are too large and talents too vast for one being to contain; tinseled names
writ large in blazing letters and etched into the vast pop unconscious forever. You know them all, our dream repositories:
lovers and killers and junkies and boozers, rockers and actors and writers and poets, all of whom run faster and leap higher
and live harder, until finally they burst like supernovas, exploding in billions of fiery traces that light the dark like
tiny suns shining down on our upturned faces, bathing in their distant glow.
That
is what Frank is doing.

None of this is lost on Lloyd, who has yet to take a moment to consider whether Frank is guilty. That can be sorted out later.
When Ulrike, his cheerful German masseuse who pulps him like an orange once a week, arrives and sets up her table, Lloyd submits
to her physical abuse distractedly, his mind exploring the opportunity afforded to him by Frank's predicament. In doing so,
he experiences a moment of unavoidable truth. If he is unable to conjure a book out of the current situation, where a celebrity
he knows personally is accused of committing a capital crime, he should give up whatever self-aggrandizing authorial fantasy
he's been indulging in and accept his gilded, if troubled, life as a television hack.

As Ulrike thumps his taut muscles, Lloyd begins to formulate a plan. He will fly to Tulsa and present himself to Frank, apologize
for not helping him out when asked, and offer his services in getting Frank's side of the story out to the American public
and potential jury pool before the trial. He has read the papers and knows
Happy Endings
is hanging by a slender thread. Some serious free time lies ahead, and this is going to be the perfect way to fill it.

Ten minutes after Ulrike finishes plucking the taut tendons in his neck like a cellist working her way through a particularly
intricate Stravinsky passage to leave Lloyd a heap of quivering flesh lying on the office sofa, Tai Chi's voice is heard over
the intercom saying, "Lloyd, Harvey Gornish's office called while you were having a massage. He wants you to come to a meeting."

"When?" Lloyd manages to croak.

"Now."

Lloyd is walking across the lot to Harvey's office feeling like a newly liberated prisoner. He has to strain to keep from
smiling lest someone see him and ask what miracle has occurred to deliver him from the perpetual tension, anxiety, and trauma
common in all those who had been granted the privilege of running television shows. Truly, the happy chappie struggling not
to mambo his way across the lot bears no resemblance to the stressed-out Lloyd of the past several months.

Lloyd arrives in the waiting room of Harvey Gornish's office and is waved right in by the young male assistant, a recent M.B.A.
who is formulating a five-year plan to take his boss's job.

Harvey's Southwestern-style office is the size of a jai alai court. At one end is a huge desk that appears to have been crafted
out of polished driftwood. The two distinct seating areas opposite the desk are furnished with soft, brown cowhide chairs
and coffee tables that look as if they were lifted from the Ponderosa, if the Ponderosa had furniture built with Burmese teak.
Harvey is talking to Pam Penner, who sits in the chair across from his desk. Both of them smile at Lloyd as he enters.

"Lloyd," Harvey says tanly, rising from behind his desk and coming to shake Lloyd's hand, a few stray skin flakes dropping
from his forehead. "How are ya?"

"Tip-top," Lloyd responds, "considering the horrible ratings we're getting."

"Lloyd!" Pam says, laughing.

"Pam!" Lloyd responds.

She's amazing,
he's thinking.
This woman could laugh at a war-crimes trial.
But he's happy to see her there since her presence indicates bad news is imminent, Harvey completely capable of delivering
good news on his own.

Harvey gestures that Lloyd should sit down, and all three of them flop into chairs in the remote seating area of Harvey's
airy office.

"That is exactly what I want to talk to you about," Harvey tells him. Lloyd waits, knowing that saying anything will simply
prolong the process and keep him here longer than necessary. "How do you feel the show's been going?"

"Obviously, it's a disaster," Lloyd says, figuring he'll make Harvey's job less complicated. "I mean, creatively it's been
great but everybody hates us."

"I disagree," Harvey declares with all the moral authority he believes his job as network programmer has granted him.

"Harvey, America flushed and we're circling the bowl."

"Hey, Melnick, let me tell you something," Harvey growls, anger flashing. "I control the handle. Nothing goes down the bowl
at Lynx until I flush it." He's trying not to sound peeved at Lloyd for having the audacity to suggest the audience is more
important than the executives.

"He's the flusher!" Pam assures Lloyd, gesturing toward Harvey and smiling.

Lloyd says, "Well, I'm glad to hear that," still expecting to be canceled any second.

"We need to make some changes," Harvey says. Lloyd nods, thinking,
Finally. Here it comes.
"Lynx has a lot invested in your show, and, well, the fact is, it's not really working."

"But there's a lot of good stuff there," Pam interjects.

"Believe me," Lloyd says, "you don't have to sugarcoat it. I'm a big boy."

"So regarding these changes and the way your show figures in . . ." Lloyd strains to keep from hugging Harvey in anticipation.
"We want you to fire Dede Green."

Excuse me?

"What's that going to do?" asks Lloyd, his stomach sinking at the prospect of having to continue when he had so recently been
planning the rest of his life. Apparently Harvey is going to implement the death by-a-thousand-cuts management theory whereby
Lloyd would be bled from successive body parts until, finally, when the pain could be stretched out no longer, Harvey would
apply the coup de grâce of cancellation.

"It's going to let us recast the part," Pam informs him.

"With who?"

"Honey Call," Harvey says, nearly licking his lips at the prospect.

"Honey Call?" This news stuns Lloyd. "Frank Bones's girlfriend?"

"Ex-girlfriend, but, yeah, that's the one. She tested very well in that
facockta
Eskimo thing we did. And let me say this, Lloyd. Not many funny women come with a body that can cause a traffic accident.
Pam, you wanna back me up here?"

"Harvey's right," Pam quickly assents, knowing who butters her toast.

"You see the news this morning?" Harvey asks Lloyd. Lloyd informs him that he has, and all three agree Frank is a crazy, unpredictable
guy. But Harvey wants to keep the conversation on track, whether Frank Bones did or didn't kill someone not being of much
concern to him when Frank is no longer under contract to Lynx and there are ratings points to chase. "Anyway, we all love
Honey and we're looking for something to stick her in. What do you think?"

"What do I think?" were the only words Lloyd's suddenly throbbing brain could formulate. "What do I think?" he repeats, still
trying to articulate a cogent response and stalling for time. "I think . . . " He's planning now. "I think . . . " Here it
comes: "I think I'm outta here if you do that."

In the thirty seconds that have elapsed between Harvey's question and Lloyd's response, Lloyd has devised the following plan:
he will play the prima donna card; that is to say, he will couch his keen desire to quit in the self-righteous language of
artistic differences, thereby freeing himself from his obligation to do the show while simultaneously asserting his creative
independence.

"Then you're gonna be in breach," Harvey says levelly, no emotion other than a slight don't-fuck-with-me pursing of the lips.

"Meaning?"

"Meaning we can abrogate your entire contract, my friend."

Lloyd hadn't considered that. He thought he'd be able to skulk away with a little dignity, the victim of a common ratings
shortfall, and still cash those big Lynx checks every two weeks. Harvey was threatening him with, if not penury, than at least
the need to actually have to go out and make a living again, something he'd never have to do if he made it to the end of his
current contract. This complicated his calculations.

Harvey sighs and runs his hand through his thick hair, looking at Lloyd as if to say,
Melnick, don't be a schmuck.
Then he says, "Melnick, don't be a schmuck."

"Think about it, Lloyd," Pam offers.

"We can take care of Dede Green for you," Harvey tells him.

Lloyd's mind is thrumming as he walks back to his office. Not since his wedding has he been faced with a decision that will
affect his life so profoundly. He could stay with the show. It would hardly be out of character; the path of least resistance
had always been where Lloyd found himself treading. He could accept the casting of Honey and watch the reconfigured show limp
along until the inevitable cancellation mercifully came, thereby ensuring his prosperity and social position.

Abandoning
Happy Endings,
however, is going to have serious ramifications. Besides the financial hit, he will immediately be tagged "difficult," a bad
label to have unless your talent is so vast, your gift so great, people will abase themselves to gain from it. Further, jumping
ship from your own show does not send an encouraging message to potential employers, a group whose numbers were getting smaller
every day as the television business continued to consolidate at a hectic pace. It's one thing to be thought of as an inducer
of massive neck pain when there is a shelf full of awards you can point to and say, "I may be an egotistical, self-aggrandizing
lunatic, but I deliver the goods." An illuminating illustration of this rule is Marlon Brando, who once appeared on the set
of a western he was making clad in a gingham dress. He was in a dress that day for no reason any rational person could discern,
yet whatever the mania that manifested itself in transvestism, it had led to Stanley Kowalski, Terry Malloy, and Vito Corleone.
Lloyd could point to no such accomplishments. Frankly, he couldn't point to any accomplishments save avoiding Phil Sheldon's
attention long enough to have never been fired from
The Fleishman Show.

An additional aspect to pulling an artistic hissy fit and resigning was not lost on Lloyd; its anticipated effect on his marriage.
Since the Morning of the Disappeared Clothes, Lloyd had been harboring a simmering, silent resentment toward his wife. Actually,
it had started when she insisted on building the new house. He had tamped it down because it was hard not to enjoy the more
luxurious surroundings, but when his mind quieted at night, in those moments before the NyQuil kicked in and he drifted off,
he wondered what exactly he was doing living like some kind of Anatolian pasha. The incident with the clothes had heightened
what he was feeling, but his natural tendency to submit, to bob like a cork, to flow, kept him from acting.

From that morning on, they had existed in a state of cold peace, much like the Israelis and Egyptians have done since the
Camp David accords of 1978, when Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat famously clasped hands with Jimmy Carter at Camp David and
agreed to stand down. Yes, there was a peace treaty, no rattling of sabers in the capitals, no exchanges of gunfire along
the border, no open hostilities; but neither was anyone getting together to share falafel. Such was the current State of the
Melnick Union, which, to Stacy, seemed quite unremarkable. If anyone had asked, she would have said the marriage was absolutely
fine. Lloyd's lack of interest in sex she would have ascribed to the onset of middle age, and as for his increasing uncommunicativeness,
well, men just weren't great talkers, were they? He certainly had become a high-end provider, and when you get down to it,
what else is there, really?

Although the two of them lived in the same house, Lloyd occupied an entirely different reality. To Lloyd, the high-handed,
preemptive manner in which Stacy had dispatched his wardrobe was an egregious violation of a tacit noninterference pact and
clearly deserving of retribution. He had been biding his time, waiting for an opportunity, and now it seemed gloriously at
hand. If Lloyd balled on Lynx, the money supply would be choked off, and they would be forced to sell the house he never wanted
to move into anyway. It was a passive-aggressive fantasia. By doing nothing, worlds would collide! The resulting marital earthquake
would set off a chain of events that would quite possibly lead to divorce, which Lloyd regarded with the hopeful ardor of
a farmer in the dry season contemplating an approaching bank of rain clouds.