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Wanting to see every detail, every spasm and twitch. He was beside Corea and poked him with the knife. Corea cried harder and the man began to do it the same way, an eerie impersonation of pain.

As the fire went out and the sun began to rise, the man reached fingertips out and touched Corea’s tortured body. Licked the blood, tasting it. He smiled, sat cross-legged, and watched the sun climb from the ground.

A
lan was at the newstand on Laurel Canyon when Patrick Benson walked up to say hello.

“Alan?”

Alan turned from the article he was scanning in
Esquire;
the piece about him. He was midway through a half-serious quote from himself about how wealth and power were, “a rabid mastiff that walks you.”

“… Patrick?”

Alan knew he looked terrible. Hoped Patrick wouldn’t mention it.

“So, how’ve you been? Other than owning network television?” Patrick had grown a beard. Gotten chubby.

Alan smiled, looked down at the sidewalk. Glanced over to make sure no one was bothering his new Aston Martin. He didn’t want to be talking to Patrick. Patrick’s
special about children whose mothers had died of AIDS was decimated by a “best-of” action sequences from “The Mercenary” and the somewhat obscene paradox seemed to haunt the moment.

“Just busy with the show. You know …”

They had worked together as story editors on one of the most wooden-headed action shows ever, “Rough Waters,” which featured two cops who rode around in a boat, exchanging cretinous thoughts while working on their tans.

It had been painful.

The executive producer had been a paranoid drunk with Al Haig hair and Rancho Mirage skin who abused the staff in creative meetings, insisting the dialogue have a “fun” sound. During particularly late and ugly sessions, he actually resorted to cracks like, “people with your talent don’t deserve to write,” before snorkeling back into his scotch and bile, glaring lifelessly.

Alan had managed to ride out the hundred-proof iron-maiden, finding the guy a pathetic cartoon. But Patrick had always been stung by it, sensitive in ways that made people care about him; worry about him.

“You ever see my special?”

Alan said he had but it wasn’t true. Patrick nodded and it was hard for Alan to tell if he felt betrayed and lied to. Alan asked him what he was up to; how come they never saw each other anymore.

“I’m quitting the business. I just don’t want to do this anymore. All the things I think are important, nobody wants to do. My agents don’t put me into anything socially relevant. The networks all want that seventy-five share
Matterhorn. I never could come up with hits like you do, Alan. You have a gift.”

Was it admiration or contempt?

Alan thought maybe it was his own imagination. Patrick was never a nasty or indirect kind of guy. He was nice to everyone. Maybe it was why he was losing.

“Oh, it’s just a fucking fluke, you know that, Patrick. ‘The Mercenary’ is not exactly out to help dying kids. It’s just a roller coaster. You always shot for stuff that had something to say.” He heated-up a grin. “… especially when we were doing ‘Rough Waters’ …”

Patrick smiled.

Alan was being nice and he appreciated it. But Alan meant it, somewhere, though he mostly pitied Patrick. Looking into Patrick’s open eyes and seeing someone who still had the right idea. Even if no one wanted to buy it.

“Marcia and I and the kids are moving up to Portland. I’m going back to writing plays, if you can believe that.”

Alan always envied Patrick having a family; love and forgiveness to come home to every night.

“Playwrite. What are you kidding?” Alan was teasing him. “You’re not depressed enough. You have to lose all reason to go on.”

Patrick had no response.

“Anyway, you can’t live in Portland. People who live in Portland are lumber.”

Patrick laughed, teeth squeezed together tightly and Alan noticed a couple of women gathering around his Aston, looking at all the people at the stand, wondering
who owned this magnificent machine. He felt slightly self-conscious; didn’t want Patrick to see the whole thing.

“Anyway, there’s things I always wanted to write that are important to me and … I’ll never make it here.” He peered through an insecure smile and Alan realized how much he missed people like Patrick. He didn’t know anybody like him anymore. Everybody was too successful to be open; too much to gain, too much to lose. That was the deal. The gig.

The dirty trick.

“Anyway. I better get going. We’re still packing up the house and everything. You ever get up to Portland?”

They both smiled. Yeah, sure, he did.

“Hey, Alan … fucking amazing stuff you’re doing on ‘The Mercenary.’ You pushed the envelope.”

Alan nodded. Didn’t know what to say.

“It’s just ratings, Patrick.”

Patrick nodded, said nothing.

“Hey, say hi to the family, will you?”

“Sure. Marcia asks about you.”

“Well, for chrissake invent something that makes me look good.”

They hugged a little and Patrick drove away, looking back in his rearview to see Alan being approached by the two girls.

A
lan heard Tinkerbell trapped, screaming for help, and turned down the music. The car phone was ringing. He put it on hands-free, answered.

“Yeah?” The heat outside was trying to break in and he kicked up the A.C., turning the Aston into a Margarita.

It was Corea’s wife; a rained-out voice. “I called you in your car so no one could hear.” A frightened whisper. “I’m … if anyone knows I’m telling you this …”

Alan asked what was wrong. Waited for a red light. She cried. Her signal was fading.

“He’s been raping me. He’s been … hurting me.”

“Rape?” He tried to understand. “… you’re married. What’s going on between you?”

Her emotions were slurring. “It’s the show. The character. It’s like …”

Alan was ski-jumping down La Cienega; downshifting. The engine sounded like the MGM lion. Her thoughts were breaking up, words a dotted line.

“… yes?” He wanted to hang up; to leave his day behind with the push of a button. It was all starting to get to him. Every shape and random crease.

“… he’s like someone else.”

Alan listened.

“Will you talk to him?”

He felt too weak to put himself through it. Still didn’t know what was wrong but felt awful.

“What do you want me to say. This is more like something a marriage counselor should—”

“Please … he’ll listen to you. He always says you understand him.”

“Look … he’s kidding you. We don’t get along …”

“I’m afraid he’s going to hurt someone. I’m afraid he’s really going to … hurt someone. I’ve never seen him so angry. It’s like he’s—”

Alan stabbed his horn. Some hustler was flipping him off. Alan didn’t know what to say to her. “What does he say when you ask him what happened?”

Her signal was balled-up plastic wrap.

“… he says … that he lleeoonntodpspsps.”

Alan lifted smoked lenses, stared at the phone. “Hello? Are you there? Hello?” Dead air.
“Fuck!
”

The city felt Alan’s little car crawling on it and didn’t move; waiting to scratch him off.

“… hello?” She was back.

“… I lost you. Could you say it again?”

“He’s home. I can’t talk.” She was barely audible.

“What were you going to say?”

Her mind pressed down on a knife blade.

“He said … everything was going to be different now. He said …”

Alan could hear a door slamming. An angry male voice. He could hear her scream as she was hit and thrown down, breaking something made of glass. As Corea started to rip off her clothes and rape her, grunting like an animal, the signal broke up.

I
s it possible I’ve always been violent but it’s hidden out in my mind?”

No answer. Eyes red. Skin hanging loose.

“… it was always there in my work. Producers and actors who read my stuff were always impressed with my ability to … I don’t know … mimic sociopathic creeps. With the show … I’ve gotten brilliant at it. Is that weird? Come on, it’s weird, I know you think it is. I came from a nice family in Connecticut. People in Connecticut don’t get angry. They circulate petitions.”

Eyes sweep; owlish. Brittle nails chewed.

“If I had to be absolutely honest about why my writing works, it’s because I have a gift for capturing the sound of these derelicted pricks. It’s why my show works. Maybe I shouldn’t knock it. Maybe it’s even why writers write. It’s
our subconscious gang graffiti. I feel cold. Is it cold in here?”

A cold sweat. Forty-five minutes flatlined.

“Way I look at it, as long as my writing entertains people and I get a fifty share, what the fuck. I mean, I’m getting rich, right?”

Moving to the door. Features trembling on sick flesh.

“… what’s happening to me?”

N
o one ever stopped there.

It scared people. Like news footage of TWA crashes. Or photos of dying children. It could’ve been a slaughterhouse. Or a crematorium. An asylum for hideous states of flesh and mind.

It was seventy-five miles from L.A. But when you saw it, it didn’t remind you of anywhere you’d ever been. And it made you feel scared inside.

The neon sign above the door flashed a sore color. It was called
Skinners
and twenty or so H.D. Panheads, Knuckleheads, and chopped Sportsters sat outside; rabid, chain-driven creatures. Black, tear-drop tanks and mutilation artwork shone like underworld manes. Grinning skulls. Screaming faces.

Inside, nobody heard the Aston Martin that pulled up and parked. Two minutes later, Alan entered, pried
smoke apart, walked to the bartender. A sign behind the man read: FUCK YOU TWICE.

Pool balls clicked like snapping bones and septic faces tracked; eyes in a horror painting.

Alan said he was looking for a guy named Corea.

The bartender shrugged, smiled just like the artwork on the gas tanks. Eyes watched. Grunting laughter and hungry voices moved across the floor toward Alan, twining around his feet and legs.

The bartender pointed to a table, near the back.

Alan moved across the room as faces stared, chins resting on vertical cue sticks. Huge bodies moved in front of him; intimidating obstacles.

“… excuse me,” said Alan, making a cautious path through the tough men who smelled of sex; violence.

Then, he saw him.

Seated at the back table, face flecked with reddish freckles. Some whore was under the table, on her knees.

Alan stood over the table. Corea looked up at him. The flecks on his face looked like dried blood. The whore’s head moved up and down, faster and faster and Corea had no expression, waiting; an eerie cipher. When she’d finished, wiping full lips, she stood on black stockings and heels, went to the bar for a chaser.

Corea kicked a chair out for Alan.

As Alan stood there, a short-skirted waitress brought up a plate with an enchilada, a piece of steak, and fries. It was hot and she held the plate with a thick cloth. Corea leaned back while she put it down.

“Very hot,” she said.

He reached up into her panties and slid a finger in, moving it deep inside her, up and back. “Very hot,” he
repeated, in hollow repetition. She whispered something in his ear, moved off.

Alan watched Corea moving the plate with those fingers that looked bloodstained, undisturbed by the hot ceramic surface. Alan squinted. How could he do it? The heat would burn anyone’s skin.

“How the fuck are you,
Al?
Hungry? Like good twat?” He held up a glistening finger. Alan didn’t move.

“We have to talk.” Alan was trying to attract no attention. Spoke softly.

Corea tilted part of his upper lip, showing brown teeth. But they didn’t look grease-penciled like the ones makeup applied every morning. They seemed like the teeth of a primitive. Alan watched as Corea started to eat the steak, so undercooked it was wet; as if freshly cut from an animal. Trickles of blood creeked his chin.

Is he kidding, Alan wondered? Is he trying to get more leverage on the show? Otherwise, why the absurd act? Why this place? This belly of the beast, head-fuck job? The theatrical extremity. Corea was pulling down four hundred and fifty grand an episode. They could’ve had lunch at Mortons. This was a fucking game.

Alan figured some agent must’ve gotten to Corea; told him how to position himself to renegotiate for even bigger weekly. Maybe points. If it wasn’t that, Corea was believing his own press. Believing he was the character. Melding; seeping.

Franky once told Alan about an actor he’d worked with who played a drool-pan in a sitcom called “Shaved Nuts” who’d gradually started acting crazier and crazier, off the set. The press loved it, running endless articles about the guy throwing inexplicable tantrums in sedate
settings. Trying to swallow an entire microphone on the March of Dimes telethon. Or just displaying his dick, in general, anywhere he could unzip and flop.

He’d been found, one night, playing Donkey Kong, nude, in some 7-Eleven, eating Good and Plenty. During his arrest, he bit one cop’s ear off and they had to pump his stomach to get it out. The whole stunt made the cover of the
National Enquirer
, “Shaved Nuts” ratings popped hole number two in the ozone, and the guy’s contract was renewed for twice his weekly. Franky said he thought it was a total act until the show was cancelled and the guy swigged some Drano that permanently hit the spot.

“You never really know,” Franky had told Alan. “With fucking actors, the good ones … it all looks the same. Be careful.”

Corea was scarfing more bloody beef. “I tell you how tight my wife’s pussy is? Should try it some time, Al.”

Alan pushed upward on his forehead. “So … what the hell is going on, Corea? A lot of people are talking about you.”

“People are scared of me.”

“Why?”

He looked into Alan’s eyes and it felt crawly to Alan; the way Corea didn’t blink, didn’t waver. Something about him was genuinely upsetting. Much more than that first meeting way back when he’d sneaked into the studio and Alan’s office.