DARK THRILLERS-A Box Set of Suspense Novels (32 page)

He read on.

I hope you can find a way to forgive me for intruding into your privacy. I can't tell you how I got in. I might want to come again, you see. Don't bother to change the locks, by the way. It won't stop me.

I've missed you every single day, hour and minute we've been apart. If you'd only give me one more chance I would do anything. You know I'd lay down my life for you.

The one thing I can't do is give you up.

I love you too much to ever give you up.

Karl's gaze rose from the end of the page where there were Xs and Os in the place of a signature. Xs and Os, like a lovesick kid would put at the end of a love letter.

He sank onto the side of the mattress and read over the note again. And a third time, his brow furrowing, his mind turning and tumbling, trying to decipher from the printed letters or the words who might have written them.

He refolded the note and closed his eyes.

He had a real problem.

Any one of several women might have written it, he admitted. He did not think himself promiscuous, but he certainly had had his share of relationships. Too many of his affairs ended in recrimination and long sorrow; that's the way it was out here with all the competition and the passion that sometimes got displaced onto people like him who helped a novice become a pro. He told them—didn't he tell them?—not to get serious, no commitment, please, let's not become too fond of our arrangements; it's not you, it's me. I'm not sure I'll ever be ready for another lengthy relationship. My marriage going on the rocks took away my hankering for all that.

Olivia might have written this note.

Or Marilyn.

Maybe his ex-wife, Robyn.

Or Catherine.

Fury at how the note-writer had included the thinly veiled threat "don't bother to change the locks"—overrode his wonder at who it might be.

He stood, flinging the note to the floor. He went through the house checking all the window locks and made sure the kitchen door from the garage was locked. Then he put a chair beneath the doorknobs on the front, garage, and back doors.

No one was coming in while he was here. He'd make damn sure of that! So what if it made him look like a scared little sissy pants. He wasn't going to bed without the doors secure.

When he'd finished, he returned to the bedroom and undressed. He hastily brushed his teeth, yawned widely at his reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror, and didn't remember the note until he crossed the carpet barefoot for bed. He stepped on it, creasing one corner of the folded stationery. He stooped, picked it up and dropped it into the trashcan next to the bedside table.

"To hell with it," he muttered.

He wondered if the Jaguar bumper was damaged as he crawled between the sheets, and was about to worry about who had gotten into his home to write the note, but the deep tiredness in his bones slithered throughout his body as he settled into bed. He fell into sleep as if he were diving through a wave and being lost in an undertow.

Dead to the world and any danger it might hold.

5

"Insecurity, commonly regarded as a weakness in normal people, is the basic tool of the actor's trade."

Miranda Richardson, The Guardian, London

Cam forced Jackie Landry to redo the shot where he entered the house and found the note on his pillow.

"Cut!"

This was the ninth take. He'd gone through this nine times and had been screamed at nine times. He now rubbed down his face with both hands, refreshing himself. Immediately the girl from makeup rushed over and patted him down with powder so his skin wouldn't shine from the lights. He always forgot and she always had to run over.

"Listen." Cam came right up to Landry on the set, but he was still shouting loud enough for his rant to carry clear across the room. "You don't look scared to me. If you don't look freaked out, this scene doesn't work, I keep telling you that. What's the matter, you didn't get enough sleep, you didn't get laid, what the hell's the matter with you?"

Jackie knew not to talk back. "Let me try it again."

"You're fucking right we're trying it again. Remember? You just got off the freeway and could have been killed. Your heart's already beating like crazy when you drive into the garage. You see the door open. Somebody might be inside. They might have a goddamned Uzi in there, or at least a .45. If you want to ever break to eat lunch, you have to get this right. Now show me scared."

He walked off, turned, walked back again. "You've never been in the service, I know that, but have you ever in your life been in jeopardy? Ever been in danger?"

Jackie, at a loss and feeling horribly harangued, hung his head and mumbled, "I fell off my brother's roof once.”

“You what?"

"I fell off a roof. That was pretty scary. I slipped going up after a kite, broke my arm in two places."

Cam threw up his hands and stalked off. "He fell off a fucking roof and broke his arm."

Jackie, chastised, was now in the proper mood. Cam scared the shit out of him. He never knew if he was going to yell at him or sock him in the nose. If he had to retake it again, Cam was going to slug him, he just knew it. And if that happened, he'd hit him back. He wouldn't want to; he knew if he did he'd be off the picture, but no one laid a hand on him without getting twice as much in return.

"Quiet on the set!"

Jackie focused on the garage door. When the cameras were rolling, he walked to it in trepidation. This time the shoot went smoothly. Cam yelled, "Cut!" after Jackie flopped on the bed, pulling the covers over his naked legs, his eyes falling closed on the close-up. Jackie struggled up from the mattress.

"That was great. That wasn't spectacular, but it was great. See, all it takes is acting."

Jackie glanced over at Olivia Nyad as the wardrobe person, Betty Ann, handed him a robe to slip over his jockey shorts. He never wore jockeys. He preferred boxers. His privates had shriveled up like a bunch of raisins with everyone watching him fail over and over to get the scene right. Olivia grinned.

"I don't think it's so funny," he said.

"Honey, trying to get you to look frightened is like trying to put a frown on Fabio. You're too handsome for your own good."

He tried to smile. It was a half-assed compliment, but it was a compliment nevertheless and he needed one just then. "I've never worked with Cam before," he said by way of explanation. Or maybe it was an apology.

"After you work with him this time, you won't work with him again either."

"Why not?"

"Because he eats actors alive. By the end of this film, you'll be shark bait."

Again Jackie sighed. Olivia was probably right. He had heard every actor ought to do one film with Cam, but only one. Many claimed that's all it took to learn the most important lessons about why they became actors in the first place. You found out if you loved the work enough to take that much abuse.

"You haven't worked with him before either, have you?”

“Never had the pleasure."

"He always yell like that?"

"Mostly. It's his method."

He gave her a puzzled look.

"You know. Some of them cajole, some fall in love with us, some are reasonable and depend on appealing to the intellect. But Cam, he's temperamental and that's how he gets his way."

"He's manipulative."

She laughed. "Don't say that so he can hear you. Even though you're right."

Robyn strolled by and tossed off, "Good work, Jackie." He watched her sashay past, his gaze riveted on her ass in the tight white slacks. Robyn was one of the few people in show business who came on a set in tight clothes. Most people wore whatever was comfortable. Sometimes they had to stay eighteen hours and tight clothes could hurt you. But not Robyn. She lived up to her model-like beauty, always showing it off.

"Want some of that?" Olivia asked.

She talked like a guy, which embarrassed Jackie for her sake. "She's so tiny."

"So was Napoleon."

He laughed and the bundle of tension putting a cramp in the back of his neck fled. Olivia might talk like a man in a locker room, but she was so clever it didn't seem to matter to him now. The damn scene was over. He'd gotten through it. But there were a lot more like it to come. He didn't want to think about that just yet. He was a little afraid audiences would think him a pussy all the way through this movie, if he had to be so scared all the time. It wasn't exactly the role of hero he was getting to play here. Maybe something good was coming up in the scenes they hadn't seen yet. Surely he didn't have to go around like a frightened geek through the whole movie. He fervently hoped.

He saw Olivia still watching him. His thoughts slipped out. "We're all nuts to be doing this without knowing the plot."

"We know it. I'm the stalker, you're the stalkee. What's to know?"

"I think it's going to be more than that."

She shrugged and lit a new cigarette. "I can handle it, whatever it is."

She would, too. She'd steal this movie away if he didn't watch out. They were going to share top billing, but given the chance, Olivia Nyad would whittle him down to a nub. He'd be her shadow. Hell, he already was. There had been no Oscar nominations for him.

The fleeting thought that being in a Hill movie might garner him one made gooseflesh break out on his naked legs and arms.

"You can't get your agent to tell you anything about the script?" he asked.

She shook her head. "To tell you the truth, I'm still trying. No luck yet." She rose to join him where he stood on the set. "Want to go get something to eat?"

"Sure, let me change." He knew she watched him walk away. Many men by nature were lecherous creatures. Olivia was the first female he'd met. He wondered what she'd be like in bed. A filthy talker probably, like some bad starlet in a low-budget porno flick. Fuck me, she'd say. Do me hard. Eat me, baby.

He grinned to himself.

He knew, if he played his cards right, he'd get to find out if he was right. Then maybe if she could weasel any information from her agent about the script, she'd tell him. It was worth a try. He hated working in the dark this way.

6

"Hollywood has always been a cage . . . a cage to catch our dreams."

John Huston, Sunday Times, London

When not immersed in the details of the next day's shooting script, The Body took care of all the necessary tasks to stay healthy. There was food to prepare and consume. Exercises to perform until the sweat rolled down the forehead in rivulets. A shower, preferably cold as ice, for the shock value to the system.

With all of that out of the way, The Body either sat in the dark isolation of the sensory deprivation room or went to the computer and typed out the sadness of a lonely life into a file of the word processor. It was a stream-of-consciousness activity that helped soothe the mind after a day on the set. The Body now typed, fast and sure, but without capital letters and sometimes without punctuation, thoughts running together the way they did inside a confused brain.

—inside Karl's house it was like trespassing but not enough to scare me. he might put in a security system. all the other Malibu bigshots have security systems. but i can get past anything he puts in. i've been studying electronics. i've been studying a lot of things. what else do i have to do with my time, but study. i could go crazy if i didn't keep my mind trained on the future. there was no future inside karl's house. it was spotlessly clean and too neat except for the bed, he didn't make the bed.

last night i was in her house and it was clean too and i was worried for a minute the live-in maid had heard me enter, but no one came to check. C. was sleeping beside her husband. i'll only go in when she's sleeping. to watch her. to watch her and hate her. she'll never know i was there. i am a phantom. there is invisibility for people me—

The Body stretched, sitting straighter in the desk chair. Thirsty. Should have brought my glass of wine from dinner, The Body thought, rising from the computer.

The room was dark, save for a blue glow from the computer monitor. The Body passed near the mobile hanging over the crib and paused to give it a little swing. Mickey and Minnie Mouse and Goofy went swimming around in a circle in the air above the empty crib.

The Body found the wine bottle and poured a slug of it, filling the wine glass that sat next to the sink. At the door of the room where the computer sat, The Body flicked on the overhead light.

No more shadows. No more darkness. Away with it! Be gone, darkness and lies!

The stuffed toys arranged along the wall shelves. The white crib and the Disney-character mobile hanging now still above it. The child's bright rug on the wood floor, a series of alphabet blocks decorating the expensive fabric.

The computer stood on the white matching desk against the wall opposite the crib, the ramblings there not altogether coherent to anyone but the author.

The Body's eyes closed and the hand holding the wine glass trembled.

This room would never be put to good use. The bed, the toys, all of it a ghostly setting for The Body to save thoughts on a computer's disk. Most of the time the room was a haven and kept The Body from feeling so alone. But tonight . . . tonight it just made The Body lonelier than ever.

The light went out.

The Body left the computer monitor on and went to bed. The full glass of untouched wine sat sweating and warming on draining board.

Tomorrow Cam would give them another set of pages from the script. The Body would then have something to do besides languish in this cage they called Hollywood.

7

"I fucking hated school. I was left back, so I was, like, sixteen in ninth grade. I wouldn't even make the effort to just keep up with it, to do the little bit of work that I needed to do to get by. I wanted to be an actor."

Quentin Tarantino, Premiere

Olivia Nyad sat in a white velvet chair across from her secretary, Janet Grenda, in the sitting area of her bedroom. Jan had been with her for ten years and saved her ass more times than Olivia liked to count. Once in a while she thought she saw a hint of disgust, as she did right now in Jan's eyes. If she really believed what she saw, she would have fired her on the spot. But she might be imagining it. It was too hard to find someone you could trust. She didn't really want to go in search of another personal secretary. How often could you find a confidante in Hollywood who would keep her mouth closed?