Fun and Games Read online

  Charlie muttered, “Nice fucking town.”

  “Do you want me to drive?” Lane asked. “Because—”

  “No.”

  After a wide curve, they passed a rocky overlook where a couple of groups of tourists lined up to take photos of one another with the shimmering reservoir and City of Angels in the background. Lane looked at all of their cars parked along the road. The children all bounced around up there, mugging for the camera, some of the older ones flashing fake gang signs.

  “Lane.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You said you know this area.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, you mind directing me the nearest highway?”

  “I just thought of something.”

  “What?”

  “Do you think they have this thing LoJacked or something? They could be tracking us right now.”

  Hardie sighed.

  “You know what? I don’t give a shit. I’m tired of crawling through cactus plants and running up stairs and down mountains. Let’s put a few miles between us and them, then ditch the van somewhere.”

  “So that’s your big plan.”

  “Well, sweetie, to tell you the truth, I’m kind of making it up as I go along here. I should be drunk in somebody else’s house, watching Singing in the Fucking Rain, okay?”

  Lane couldn’t stop thinking about that address, what it meant that the address was programmed into this GPS unit, in this van.

  By the time they reached Lake Hollywood Drive, Charlie announced that he did have a plan, as a matter of fact. Charlie wanted to call somebody named Deke, kept repeating, Deke will know how to handle this, Deke this and Deke that, prompting Lane to finally ask who the hell Deke might be. Deke turned out to be Deacon Clark, some FBI agent Charlie knew from his Philadelphia days.

  “That’s pretty much the dumbest fucking idea in the history of dumb ideas,” Lane said.

  “Why?” Hardie asked.

  “Haven’t you been listening to anything I’ve said? The Accident People are connected. Once our names go into the system, any system, anywhere in the world, we’re done. That means no police station. No hospitals. Certainly no FBI.”

  “Then, what’s your bright idea?”

  “We call my manager,” Lane said. “She’ll know exactly what to do, who to call.”

  Charlie frowned. “Right. So don’t call my trusted source. Let’s call yours!”

  Lane said nothing, because she realized that Charlie might be right. Hard to tell who to trust anymore. Every time she thought about who may have sold her out to these bastards, her heart started to ache.

  There were very few people who knew what happened.

  There were very few people who knew that address…

  Including Haley, her manager.

  How did Lane know that she wasn’t involved? How else were they able to tap into her alcohol-monitoring anklet, know her every move, and know what was crawling around in her mind over the past week, unless they got to Haley?

  She was not prepared—not financially, not physically—to go into hiding. She was too notorious to appeal to the media. Not without them painting her as a drug-addled paranoid nutcase. She couldn’t run to Haley. Andrew was in Russia. She had nobody, nobody at all except…

  Hardie twisted and turned the stolen death van through the streets of—well, he didn’t even know where this was. Was it Burbank? The Valley? He just wanted to see a road he recognized. He had L.A. boiled down to a few major routes in his brain: the 101, the 405, the 10. People complained about the gridlock and the psycho drivers, but that didn’t matter much to Hardie, since he was usually only passing through on the way to a house. Besides, he understood highways. He was used to Philly’s I-95 and the “Sure-Kill” Expressway. After a few minutes he finally saw it: a sign to the 101. He merged into the southbound lanes and headed down into Hollywood.

  Lane looked at Hardie. “Okay, so where are we going?”

  “Downtown. Or wherever there are a lot of people.”

  “So you want to get stuck in downtown when we’re fleeing a group of unstoppable killers?”

  Hardie thought about the one he’d sent flying off the edge of the cliff. That sorry son of a bitch didn’t seem too unstoppable. The guy’s surprised scream echoed in his mind. In fact, Hardie probably should worry about how much he liked replaying it.

  Hardie signaled left, then changed lanes.

  “What would you prefer to do? Drive out to the middle of nowhere, so they can hunt us down and kill us in total privacy? When you’re in trouble, you run toward people, not away from them. If they’re going to make a play, they’re not going to do it in broad daylight.”

  “How do you know? I mean, they attacked me on a highway this morning. It was early, but there were plenty of other cars on the road. They didn’t seem to give a shit. Charlie, they could be tracking us right now, fixed on a LoJack signal or some crazy shit like that. Any one of these cars could just smash into us…”

  “They wouldn’t do the same thing twice.”

  “How do you know? Seriously, how the hell do you know what they would do? God, I feel like we made it out of that house but we’re still trapped, no matter where we go. It’s not as if I can hide all that easily. People tend to recognize me. Even when I’m looking like shit.”

  Hardie glanced over at her. She was still a beautiful woman, despite the dirt and blood and swollen eye. He guessed that’s what separated famous people from the rest of humanity. People would recognize her.

  And then Hardie figured it out. Their next move, until he could call Deke.

  “Where’s Musso and Frank?”

  “The restaurant?”

  “Yeah.”

  Lane shook her head, squinted, held up her hands. “Why the fuck do you want to go to Musso and Frank?”

  Hardie told her:

  “Lunch.”

  They blasted past the entrance to the Hollywood Bowl. An electric marquee was mounted in a stately chunk of white stone; a jazz musician Hardie didn’t know was performing here tonight, eight p.m. Cars fought their way into the parking lot. Cars full of people who probably had no worries on their minds. After all, they were going out in the cool California afternoon on a Saturday to see somebody play jazz. How tough could life be?

  But Hardie had always felt that way—separate from the good times everyone else seemed to be having. Like his own little world somehow sat parallel to the real world, but not actually in it.

  “Get over to the left,” Lane said. “No, really, right now.”

  “I’m trying.”

  But other vehicles quickly closed the gap, forcing Hardie to retreat. Somehow he ended up being corralled into the right lane. All down Highland giant billboards advertised movies he hadn’t heard of, featuring actors and actresses who were equally unfamiliar. Some of the cars on the road looked bizarre to him, too, now that he was really looking at them. If his life were a DVD, Hardie thought he must have skipped over a couple of chapters.

  “Okay, we missed Franklin, so turn right onto Hollywood. We’ll have to come around.”

  “Where…?”

  “Hollywood Boulevard. The next light. Right. As in turn right… right now!”

  And suddenly Hardie found himself at L.A. Tourist Ground Zero. Some of his homeowners had cautioned him to avoid this area at all costs. The sidewalks were jammed with goofy tourists being preyed upon by people in costumes and photographers and drug dealers and hustlers and punks. Traffic came to standstill a few car lengths away from Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Hardie saw that the marquee read proximity, which apparently was having its premiere tonight. Another movie he’d never heard of. Outside, along dark velvet ropes, people stood around with vacant stares. Waiting to be entertained, trying to ignore the hustlers and kids hawking CDs.

  “So… Musso and Frank?”

  “Back that way a block or two,” Lane said. “You were kidding about lunch, right?”

  Right in front of Grauman’s, Ha
rdie stopped, put the van in park, pressed down on the emergency brake, flipped on the four-ways. The car ahead of him inched forward a few feet. The car behind Hardie noticed, and gave a tap of his horn.

  “Okay, this is good. This will work,” Hardie said.

  “Right, Charlie?”

  “Follow me.”

  And there, right in the middle of Hollywood Boulevard, Hardie turned off the ignition, pulled out the keys, and stepped outside.

  Lane stared at him as if he were an astronaut who’d announced he was going for a stroll and just opened the air lock without his helmet on.

  “Charlie?”

  But what else could she do except follow him? Lane opened the passenger door, unsnapped her belt, slid off the seat, and started limping toward the back of the van. Charlie had already opened up the back doors. He grabbed the suitcase. The guy in the car behind them, just two feet away, moaned what the fuck so loudly she could hear it through the glass of his windshield. He blasted them with his horn again. Hardie looked up, smiled, and gave him a tiny Queen of England wave.

  Lane touched his shoulder.

  “Uh, you know we can’t stop here. The cops are going to be up our asses in about two seconds.”

  “Then I guess it’s a good thing we won’t be here.”

  “Please explain that.”

  Charlie pulled the retractable handle out from the suitcase, then extended his left arm formally.

  “Shall we?”

  Now other car horns were screaming at them. Charlie didn’t seem to care. He looked over at a crowd gathered on the sidewalk—hustlers, moms, dads, punks, homeless guys, toddlers, costumed superheroes, models—and shouted:

  “Hey, Hollywood types! Free drugs! Help yourself, right inside the van.”

  Hardie launched the van keys up in the air toward Grauman’s. People jumped out of the way and cursed as the keys made their descent back to earth. Then Hardie linked arms with Lane and pulled his rolling suitcase down the coral-and-charcoal paving block of the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

  21

  I found out something I never knew.

  I found out my world was not the real world.

  —Robert F. Kennedy

  “A MANHATTAN on the rocks,” Hardie said, adding, “lots of ice.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The tuxedoed waiter moved away from the table and headed toward the oak bar.

  Musso & Frank was a Hollywood legend. Even Hardie was familiar with the place. Countless directors, actors, screenwriters had sat in these same chairs, knocking back tumblers of booze and sawing into chops and making big Hollywood deals. Hardie knew this because one night—bored out of his mind and with no new movies to watch—he had watched a DVD extra that gave a quickie history of the place. As Hardie understood it, Musso & Frank was where you came to create dreams, and others could just gawk.

  Which was the whole idea.

  From the moment they stepped inside, everybody was staring at them.

  Granted, Hardie would have stared at them, too. Their clothes were dirty and torn and blood-encrusted. Hardie was pretty sure he had blood caked all around his head and neck. The gore that had seeped through his gray T-shirt had left it stiff and dark. He was also dragging along his stupid luggage, headless Spider-Man and all, which was probably a faux pas unto itself.

  But he was here with World Famous Actress Lane Madden, and that made all the difference.

  The maître’d, an older gray-haired man in a natty suit, blanched at first but then recognized her face. If Lane Madden wanted a table, then she would receive a table, no matter her physical appearance. He didn’t flinch. Maybe he was used to actors showing up in their makeup, looking like they crawled away from a plane crash site.

  But everyone else…

  It was clear no one had ever seen anything like this. Not even this midafternoon crowd of lingering lunch-hour boozers and people hoping to get Saturday night started early.

  Oh, the stares.

  Hardie looked at her. “Aren’t you going to order something?”

  “I feel like I need to throw up. Like I’m having bed spins but I haven’t been drinking. I should really call my manager.”

  “Have some bread. Or a drink.”

  “I don’t want any food. And I’m not allowed to have any alcohol. What are we doing here?”

  “You’re in public, being seen. If everything you’ve told me is true, then this is the last place They’d want you. Consider this a big ol’ thumb in their eyes.”

  “But Musso’s? Why here?”

  “Why not? This is a Hollywood power joint, right?”

  “Uh…”

  Hardie was about to tell her about the DVD extra, when someone stood up from the bar and approached their table. Instinctively, Hardie reached for a butter knife, tensed himself. The guy, wearing a designer T-shirt and jeans, held up a phone and snapped a photo, then walked away without a word. So, that’s how they do you here in L.A. Quick and dirty. Hardie put the knife back on the table and called after the guy.

  “You’re welcome, buddy.”

  They were here to be seen—but not for long. The way Hardie figured it, they’d stay just long enough to have a drink and be photographed and gossiped about. In a world where jacking off in the back of a porno theater makes you notorious, this couldn’t help but raise some eyebrows. Hardie saw it as pissing on the burning embers of their failed “accidental death.”

  They’d get noticed, and Topless’s little plans would fall apart, and then they’d get out of here and go ghost for a while and have Deke call in the cavalry.

  Lane, meanwhile, looked sick to her stomach.

  The guy with the cell phone—a production assistant named Josh Geary—quickly cut through the length of the restaurant and headed out the back to the parking lot. This was insane, what he just saw. Josh checked the photo again, squinting, but yeah. Lane Madden, looking like she’d just crawled out of her own grave. A few key presses later, the photo was on its way to a web editor he knew back in NYC. Geary was leaving for NYC next month, and hey, it couldn’t hurt to send a little gift ahead of time.

  The editor, whose name was Zoey Jordan, texted back: I WANT TO HAVE YOUR ABORTION. (Ah, those Fight Club jokes never got old.) Jordan worked at a celebrity gossip blog. NYC-based, but they also ran L.A. stuff. Especially L.A. stuff like this.

  Within twenty seconds, the photo was online with a snarky headline: LIFE IN THE FAST… ER, LANE?

  Hardie was confused. Sitting across the table, Lane looked like she’d just been handed a death sentence.

  “This is a good thing,” Hardie said. “We’ve just proven you didn’t die in a car crash this morning.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “They can’t do a thing now. They wanted to kill you and make it look like an accident and they failed. You’re sitting here in public. That dork in the two-hundred-dollar T-shirt probably just saved your life. He sends it to his friends, they’ll send it around.”

  “But then what comes next?”

  Hardie looked around the restaurant. Where was the waiter with his Manhattan? His brain worked better on booze, he was sure of it. Half of the shit that happened to him today wouldn’t have happened if he’d had a minor buzz on.

  “Look, I know you said that these Accident People are connected at the highest levels. Which sounds like a stupid movie line, by the way. Anyway, there’s one guy I trust, literally, with my life.”

  “Now that sounds like a stupid movie line.”

  “Touché. And that’s the guy I told you about. Deke. He can’t be touched. He’s straighter than a grizzly’s dick. I can call him, and he’ll have an investigation going by the time my drink arrives. He lives for shit like this. He’ll investigate. Everything comes out in the open.”

  Everything comes out in the open.

  Charlie’s words broadsided her.

  That was exactly what she’d been afraid of for three years now, wasn’t it? The very thought of it terrified her. Even worse than
dying. Because if she had died back on the 101, if she hadn’t been lucky with that stupid martial arts move and that fistful of safety glass… then at least her worst memory would have died with her.

  God, all this time, fighting Them, struggling to survive, escaping, running, begging for a chance to live…

  Maybe all this time she should have been rooting for them.

  Because once everything comes out in the open…

  This time, Factboy was in the bathroom legitimately—taking a quick leak—when the phone in his cargo pants pocket buzzed. He shook, zipped up, then checked the screen and smiled. A Google alert on Lane Madden. He read it, then read it again, just to make sure his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him or somebody hadn’t linked to an Onion piece or something. Then he autodialed Mann.

  “She’s at Musso and Frank,” Factboy said. “Right now?”

  “Right now.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Having drinks, apparently.”

  There was a pause on the line; for a moment Factboy worried that Mann would be thinking he was playing a joke, or fucking around with her for some reason (though he’d never dare). Instead she said:

  “You know, I could kiss you.”

  And with that, the call terminated.

  Factboy’s face melted into a loose grin. It wasn’t that he relished a kiss from someone like Mann—even if she was hot, she was still scary as fuck. No, what made Factboy happy was that warm, fuzzy glow of job security, the knowledge that he’d done well, and that he could bask in it for a few minutes. When he rejoined his family at dinner, his wife was pleasantly surprised he’d returned so quickly.

  And Factboy told his kids that, yes, they could order ice cream out on the back porch after they finished their meals.

  O’Neal eased himself onto a wooden bench in the Lake Hollywood dog park. Hands and legs scraped to hell, bruising all up and down his back, head throbbing, eyes watering. What hurt most, though, was his pride. They have a word for henchmen who fuck up. And that would be… ex-henchmen. He could imagine Mann berating him. If he hadn’t gone after them solo, they wouldn’t have a van loaded with gear and sensitive information now, would they?