Coldheart Canyon (16 page)

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“We’re perfectly capable of looking after Mister Pickett here,” Burrows said. “There isn’t a hospital in California that could give him better care.”

“Yeah, well, maybe,” Donnie said. “Seems to me he’d still be better off in Cedars-Sinai.”

“I really resent the implication—” Burrows began.

“
Will you just shut the fuck up?
” Donnie said wearily. “I don’t give a monkey’s ass
what
you resent. All I care about is getting my brother properly fixed up and out of here.”

“And as I say—”

“Yeah. As you say. Tell you what, why don’t you and Nurse Karyn there step out for a few minutes and let me have a private word with my brother?”

Burrows didn’t attempt any further self-justification, and Todd knew why. He could imagine Donnie’s expression in perfect detail: both brothers got color in their faces when they were riled up; and a cold eye.

Burrows duly retreated, which was the wisest thing he could have done.

“I want to get you out of here, Kiddo,” Donnie said as soon as they had gone. “I don’t trust these people as far as I could throw ’em. They’re full of shit.”

“I need to talk to Maxine before we do anything.”

“What the fuck for? I don’t trust her any more than I trust these sons of bitches.”

There was a long silence. Todd knew what was coming next; so he just waited for it.

“Just so you know,” Donnie said, “you’ve done some damn-fool things in your life, but this whole deal is the stupidest idea I ever heard. Gettin’ yourself a fuckin’ face-lift? What kinda thing is that? Christ. Does Momma know about this?”

“No. I put you down as next of kin. I thought you’d understand.”

“Well I can’t say I do. It’s a mess. It’s a goddam mess. And I’ve got to go back to Texas tomorrow.”

“Why so soon?”

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morning. Linda’s tryin’ to take away my weekends with Donnie Junior, and if I’m not in court her lawyer’s going to get the judge to rule against me. I’ve been up before him a couple of times, and he doesn’t like me. So, I’m going to have to love you and leave you, which I don’t much like doin’.

I guess I could call Momma and—”

“
No!
No, Donnie, please. I don’t want her here.” Todd reached out blind; caught hold of Donnie’s arm. “I’ll be okay. You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll be just fine.”

“All right. I hear you. I won’t call Momma. Besides, the worst’s over.

I’m sure that’s right. But listen to me, you get yourself the hell out of here and go to a proper hospital.”

“I don’t want the press finding out about this. If Maxine thinks—”

“Have you heard a fuckin’ word I said?” Donnie said, his voice getting louder. “I don’t trust that bitch. She’s out for herself. That’s all she cares about. Her piece of the action.”

“Don’t start shouting.”

“Well, what the fuck do you expect? I’ve been sitting here for seventy-two hours straight wondering how I was going to tell Mom that you died having plastic fucking surgery on your fucking face—” He paused for a breath. “Christ, if Dad was alive . . . he’d be so damned ashamed.”

“Okay, Donnie. I get the message. I’m a fuck-up.”

“You’re surrounded by so many ass-kissers, you’re not getting good advice. It makes me wanna puke. I mean, these people. They’re all puttin’

on some show—tellin’ me this, tellin’ me that—and meanwhile you’re lying there at death’s door.

“And will they give you a straight answer? Will they
fuck!
” He paused to draw sufficient breath to launch in afresh. “What happened to you, Kiddo?

Ten years ago you would have laughed your butt off at the thought of getting a face-lift.”

Todd let go of Donnie’s arm. He drew a deep, sorrowful breath. “It’s hard to explain,” he said. “But I got to stay on top of the heap somehow.

Younger guys keep coming along . . .”

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it? You’ve had a good run, for Christ’s sake. You’ve had it
all
, I’d say. All and more. I mean fuck! What more do you want? Why do this to yourself ?”

“Because I
like
the life, Donnie. I like the fame. I like the money.”

Donnie snorted. “How much more money do you damn well need?

You’ve got more than you can spend if you—”

“Don’t tell me what I’ve got and I haven’t got. You don’t know what it costs to live. Houses and taxes.” He stopped his defense; took a different tack. “Anyhow, I don’t hear you complaining—”

“Wait—” Donnie said, knowing what was coming. But Todd wasn’t about to be stopped.

“—when I send you money.”

“Don’t start that.”

“Why not? You sit there tellin’ me what a fuck-up I am, but you never said no to the cash when you needed it. Which is all the time. Who paid your last legal bills, Donnie? And the mortgage on the house so you could start over with Linda, for the third time or fourth time or whatever it was?

Who paid for that mistake?”

He let the question hang there, unanswered. Eventually, very quietly, Donnie said: “This is so fucked. I came here—”

“—to see whether I was dead or alive.”

“—to look after you.”

“You never cared before,” Todd said, with painful bluntness. “Well did you? All these years, when have you ever come out here and spent time with me?”

“I was never welcome.”

“You were
always
welcome. You just never came because you were too fucking jealous. Why don’t you admit it? At least once, between us, say it: you were so fucking jealous you couldn’t stand the idea of coming out here.”

“You know what? I don’t need to hear this,” Donnie said.

“You should have heard it years ago.”

“I’m outta here.”

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“Go on. You did your gloating. Now you can go home and tell everyone what an asshole your brother is.”

“I’m not going to do that,” Donnie said. “You’re still my brother, whatever you do. But I can’t help you if you surround yourself—”

“—with ass-kissers. Yeah. You said that.”

Todd heard Donnie get up and cross to the door, dragging his feet as he always had.

“What are you doing?” Todd said.

“I’m leaving. Like I said I would. You’re going to be fine. That faggot Burrows will take very good care of you.”

“Don’t I get a hug or something?”

“Another time. When I like you better,” Donnie said.

“And when the hell will that be?” Todd yelled after him.

But all he got by way of reply was the echo of his own voice off the opposite wall.

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Maxine turned up a little after seven, and after a few perfunctory expressions of relief that Todd was “back from the dead,” as she indelicately put it, quickly moved on to the news she was here to debate.

“Somebody in this place has a big mouth,” she said. “I got a call from the editor of the
Enquirer
this afternoon, asking if it was true that you’d been admitted to a private hospital. I told him absolutely not; this was a lie, garbage, etc., etc. And I said that if he published that you were in the hospital or anything vaguely resembling that, we’d sue him
and
his wretched rag. Ten seconds later I’ve got Peter Bart calling from
Variety
, asking the same damn question. And while I’m on with Peter, trying not to tell him an out-and-out lie ’cause he has a nose for bullshit, I have a call from
People
on the other line, asking the same question. Coincidence? I don’t think so.”

Todd moaned behind his mask of bandages.

“I’ve told Burrows we have to move you,” Maxine went on.

“Wait, Donnie said yesterday you told him that you wanted me to stay here.”

“That was before I got the calls. Now it’s just a matter of time before some photographer finds his way in here.”

“Shit. Shit. Shit.”

“That would make a nice little picture, wouldn’t it?” Maxine said, just in case Todd hadn’t already got a snapshot in his mind’s eye. “You lying in bed with your face all bandaged up.”

“Wait!” Todd said. “They’d never be able to prove it was me.”

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“The point is: it
is
you, Todd. Whoever’s put out the word about your being here is working in this building. They’ve probably got access to your records, your charts—”

Todd felt a spasm of the same panic that had seized him when he’d first woken up. The horror of being trapped. This time he governed it, determined not to let Maxine see him losing control.

“So when are you getting me out of here?” he said.

“I’ve got a car coming at five tomorrow morning. I’ve told Burrows I want the security in this place tripled till you leave. We’ll take you to the beach house in Malibu until we find somewhere more practical.”

“I can’t go home?” Todd said, knowing even as he floated the idea that it was out of the question. That would be the first place the journalists and the paparazzi would come looking for him.

“Maybe we should fly you out of state when you’re feeling a little better. I’ll call John; see if I can get him to fly you up to Montana.”

“I don’t want to go to Montana.”

“You’d be a lot more secure up there than here. We could arrange for round-the-clock nursing—”

“I said
no
. I don’t want to be that far away from everything.”

“All right, we’ll find some place here in the city. What about your new lady-friend, Miss Bosch? She’s going to be asking questions too. What do you want me to tell her?”

“She’s gone. She’s shooting something in the Cayman Islands.”

“She was fired,” Maxine said. “ ‘Creative differences,’ apparently. The director wanted her to show her tits and she said no. Though God knows some of her runway work has left little to the imagination. I don’t know why she’s got coy all of a sudden. Anyway, she wants to talk to you. What do I say?”

“Anything you like.”

“So you don’t want her in on this?”

“Fuck no. I don’t want anybody to know.”

“Okay. It’s going to be difficult, but okay. I’ve got to go. Do you want me to send a nurse in to give you something to help you sleep?”

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“Yeah . . .”

“We’ll find a place for you, until you mend. I’ll ask Jerry Brahms. He knows the city back to front. All we need’s a little hideaway. It needn’t be fancy.”

“Just make sure he doesn’t get wind of what’s going on,” Todd said.

“Jerry
talks
.”

“Give me a little credit,” Maxine replied. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning. You get some sleep. And don’t worry, nobody’s going to find out where you are or what’s happened. I’ll kill ’em first.”

“Promise.”

“With my bare hands.”

So saying, she was out of the room, leaving Todd alone and in the dark.

Donnie was right, of course. This was undoubtedly the stupidest thing he had ever done. But there was no going back on it. Life, like a movie, only made sense running in one direction. What could he do but go with the flow and hope to hell there was a happy ending waiting for him in the last reel?

A storm moved in off the Pacific in the middle of the night; the seventh storm of that winter, and the worst. Over the next forty-eight hours it would dump several inches of rain along the coast from Monterey to San Diego, creating a catalogue of minor disasters. Storm-drains overflowed and turned the streets of Santa Barbara into white-water rivers; two citi-zens and seven street-people were swept away and drowned. Power-lines were brought down by the furious winds, the most badly struck area being Orange County, where a number of communities remained without power for the next three days. Along the Pacific Coast Highway, where the wildfires of the previous autumn had stripped the hillsides of vegetation, the naked earth, no longer knitted together by roots, turned into mud and slid down onto the road. There were countless accidents; fourteen people perished, including a family of seven Mexicans, who’d only been in the promised land four hours, having skipped over the border illegally. All burned up together, trapped in their overturned truck. In CC[001-347] 9/10/01 2:26 PM Page 121

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the Pacific Palisades, the deluge carried away several million-dollar homes; in Topanga Canyon, the same.

Of course all this made the business of getting Todd from the hospital to Maxine’s beach-house both more lengthy and more frustrating than it would have been otherwise, but it may have helped to keep the endeavor secret. Certainly there were no photographers at the hospital door when they left; nor anybody waiting for them in the vicinity of the beach-house.

But that didn’t mean they were out of danger. Calls to Maxine’s offices inquiring about Todd’s condition had multiplied exponentially, and they were now coming in from further afield—several from Japan, where
Gallows
had just opened—as the rumors spread. One of the German reporters had even had the temerity to suggest that Todd was undergoing plastic surgery.

“I gave him hell. Fucking Kraut.”

“Aren’t you German on your mother’s side?”

“He’s still a fucking Kraut.”

Todd was sitting in the back of Maxine’s Mercedes, with Nurse Karyn—who had been thoroughly investigated by Maxine and judged reliable—at his side. The nurse was a woman of few words: but those she chose to utter usually carried some punch.

“I don’t see why y’all give a damn. I mean, what does it matter if somebody gets wind of it? He just got a chemical peel and a few nips and tucks.

What’s the big deal?”

“It’s not something Todd’s fans need to know about,” Maxine replied.