Heartland (2 page)
He could almost hear the computer humming.
T
here was no doubt in JayJay's mind. He had died and gone somewhere. The sound of the bus wreck still echoed faintly in his brain. To be honest, he didn't have any real problem with dying. The problem was, he couldn't decide where he'd been sent.
Although his body still resonated with his injuries, he no longer felt pain. Actually, he was feeling great. Which suggested he had gone to the higher place. The preacher had made it pretty clear what to expect downstairs, the heat and the smoke and the gnashing of teeth.
He was seeing some gnashing, all right. But they didn't seem to be experiencing any pain.
He was situated in some kind of warehouse. It was dark. Between him and the only door he could see, two people gnashed away. The lady was good-looking enough to be called an angel, all right. And the guy, well, perfect was the word that came to mind. But JayJay didn't recall the pastor ever mentioning angels wearing what these people had on. Which for the lady appeared to be a suede bikini and Indian headdress, and the guy was in armor and oil. Nor could he ever recall the pastor mentioning that angels would gnash like they were. Because they were definitely going at it. Oh yeah. He could hear the two of them from across the room. Like hogs at the trough.
The outer door opened. A woman's voice said, “All right, this isn't a playpen. Get a room, why don't you. We're serious people doing serious work.”
The pair broke off. The lady refit her leather and the guy did something with his armor.
“Hang on. I recognize you two.” The light streaming through the door was certainly bright enough to be heavenly. But the woman sounded like she had chewed off the business end of a cement mixer. “You. Tall guy. You're late for your screen test. And honey, they're busy looking for another Pocahontas. If I were you . . .”
But the pair were already gone.
The woman sniffed and might have said, “Extras.” JayJay wasn't sure. He should have been paying more attention. But he'd just realized he was nude.
Stark naked. Not a stitch of clothing on his frame.
JayJay crouched lower still. He wasn't sure what was proper in heaven. And he probably shouldn't care about what to wear in the lower place. But his momma had brought her baby up proper. And he wasn't about to pop up unclothed in front of a strange lady who might or might not be standing in for Saint Peter.
The woman walked away. JayJay could hear her moving about in another room. Cautiously he scouted around. When he didn't see anybody else, he rose in stages, ready to do his jackrabbit imitation.
The warehouse looked like it was nothing more than a huge closet. Row after metal row of clothes stretched out behind him. The racks were on wheels. Each rack had a little handwritten sign attached to one corner.
JayJay gasped. The sign on the rack in front of him read,
Heartland
. Which was the name of his spread.
“Who's that in there?”
JayJay tore off the first clothes he touched. The metal hangers clattered at his feet.
Footsteps started his way. “I better not find you two back for another round.”
JayJay double-hopped into a pair of jeans. He slipped on a shirt that looked too much like his own. Which spooked him so bad he made a mess of the buttons.
“I don't like coming down on extras, but in your case I'll definitely make an . . .” The woman stepped into the chamber, spotted JayJay, and clutched her chest.
JayJay gripped the waist of his trousers to keep them from falling off. “Howdy, ma'am.”
“Who . . .”
“Sorry to startle you.”
She released her hold on the dress over her heart. “I remember now. You're the new fellow.”
“I reckon so, ma'am.”
She took a step closer. She tilted her short body with each step, like her spine had permanently stiffened. “You didn't give me half a shock, mister.”
“That makes two of us, ma'am.”
“You're so late, they'd just about given up on you. That must be why Casting sent you straight to Wardrobe.” She turned around and motioned for him to follow her. “Come on in here. I need more light to fit you. Gladys, you got to get a load of this one.”
A voice from the other room said, “I'm busy.”
JayJay used his other hand to grip his unbuttoned shirt and shuffled forward. Though the clothes looked just like his own, they were five sizes too big.
The dumpy woman said, “Well, just un-busy yourself and come meet a ghost.”
The second room held no more answers than the first. JayJay stepped into a large chamber, forty feet to a side and surrounded by windows. And upon the windows splashed a brilliant golden light. But the room was for
working
. A roller system traced along the high ceiling. Three long tables held sewing machines and irons and magnifying glasses on long stems and lights on spindles. And a hundred different-colored threads. And scissors and measuring sticks and pencils and diagrams and working charts and drawings and easels and . . .
“Oh my word.”
A second woman rose from the central table. She was almost as tall as JayJay and wore cat's-eye glasses that sparkled in the light. She was as old as the first woman and peered at JayJay with the same spooked expression.
The squat woman said, “Can you believe it?”
“I'm looking straight at him, and I don't trust my own eyes.” The tall woman moved in close. “Where on earth did they
find
you?”
“T-the bus to Los Angeles, ma'am.”
The angular woman chuckled. “Well, come on over here, and let's get you fitted up proper.”
The tall woman tugged and drew lines on his clothes. The shorter woman picked up a phone, punched in a number, and said, “It's Hilda over in Wardrobe. Your replacement JayJay is here.” She listened a moment, then her voice turned flinty. “You know what? I was so busy trying to clean up your messes I forgot to ask.”
Hilda turned to him and said, “The peon who calls himself an assistant director wants to know why you've kept everybody waiting.”
“Ma'am, all I can tell you is, the bus took a hit while I was fast asleep.”
The tall woman spoke through a mouthful of pins. “Sounds to me like you're going to fit in around here just fine.”
Hilda said into the phone, “His bus was in an accident. No, I have no idea why he traveled by bus. You want details, you can get them yourself . . .” She cradled the phone a second time. “King Peon wants to know how long.”
Gladys replied, “I've got to take the pads out of the shoulders, else he's going to look like a hairless ape. And take in six years of flab. He's got a dancer's waist.”
Hilda said into the phone, “Five minutes. Okay. Right. I'll tell them.”
She hung up and said, “His Royal Pain in the Neck says to hurry.”
“Like we ever took it easy around here.” She patted JayJay's arm. “Okay, hon. Let me have those clothes.”
“Ma'am, you got to excuse me, I don't have nothing else on.”
“You hear that, Hilda? The cowboy here is shy. Just step behind that screen there, hon.”
JayJay did as he was told. As he handed his clothes around the corner, he said, “I was just wondering. I mean, is this heaven?”
Both women laughed at that. “Only if they offer you a contract, hon. Otherwise you're just a sheet to tear off their clipboard. What size shoe do you wear?”
“Thirteen and a half, ma'am. But I was always partial to boots.”
“Thirteen and a half, you hear that, Gladys?”
“The one part of him that didn't get shrunken or swollen.”
“Ma'am?”
“Never you mind, son. What's your name?”
“JayJay Parsons, ma'am.”
The ladies laughed again, full-throated and long. “Oh, that's rich.”
“Takes you back, doesn't it?”
“Right out of my past, that boy.” A hand snaked around the screen, holding a pair of jeans. “Try these on.”
“Why, they fit like they was made for me.”
“Let's hope you're around long enough to claim them, sport.” A shirt came next, then boots. “You won't need a hat. They'll want to shoot you with your face exposed.”
“Shoot?”
“Hurry it up, sport. Let's have a look at . . .” The voice trailed off as JayJay stepped into view. The two women moved in close together. Their eyes mirrored the same astonished expression.
“Is something wrong?”
The shorter woman nudged her neighbor. “Gladys.”
“What?”
“The kerchief.”
“Oh. Of course. Hang on, I just had it . . .”
“Right there by your machine.”
“Oh. Sure.” Gladys fumbled for it because she seemed unable to take her eyes off JayJay.
“Thank you, ma'am.” He rolled the kerchief cowboy-style, flipping the ends and then slipped it around his neck. He spied his Arapaho collar ring, the one Clara had given him for Christmas a while back. Which was as strange as anything this day, on account of having lost it down the well, oh, it must have been two years back. But JayJay didn't say anything, the ladies were looking at him strange enough already. He slipped the ring up tight and set the kerchief's edges front and back of his right shoulder. Lying there on the table was the blade he'd taken off the biker who'd been threatening the ladies in Simmons Gulch. He slipped it in the back of his belt, tilted so it wouldn't ride up when he sat down. Like he'd been doing it all his life. His every motion made the ladies go more round-eyed.
He cleared his throat. “Y'all are making me right spooked.”
Hilda started like she was coming awake. She gripped his arm and spoke in a shaky purr. “Come on, sport. I got to see this.”
“You aren't going anywhere without me,” Gladys declared, moving around to his other side.
O
kay. Here's your choice for the day.” Martin Allerby addressed Peter in what the writer considered full studio-chief mode. “I'll give you the version for public consumption, or reality. It's your call.”
They were situated in the penthouse of Centurion Studios' main office building. If an office building with only five floors could claim to have a penthouse. But Hollywood was all about status. Mythical or real mattered less than whether people believed it or not. Martin Allerby was the head of Centurion Studios. Naturally, his office would be located in the penthouse. Even if it was in the basement bomb shelter under the back-lot cafeteria, it would still be the penthouse. That was Hollywood.
The leather chair squeaked as Peter shifted uncomfortably. An offer of this much truth at nine in the morning could only mean bad news. “Whichever will let me keep my job.”
“A survivor. Good. I like that in my employees.” Martin Allerby reached for one of the five cigarettes he permitted himself each day. Allerby was a spare man. He lived the high life, but in moderation. Martin Allerby was a survivor in a world that generally ate its own young. He did so by keeping his vices in check. He did not care what others did unless it affected the studio's bottom line. He had produced a stream of television shows that made money for the networks that bought them. He was not cold so much as utterly disconnected.
Allerby smoked Cuban cigarettes that came in a hard box with gold foil. The cigarettes were an odd ivory color. The smoke smelled like cigars. Rich and pungent. It was of course against California law to smoke in a public office. Six months back, an actress being interviewed for a role had complained. As a result, she had been barred from ever entering the studio. Not publicly. But it happened. That was Martin Allerby. He was not a man to cross.
“Okay, here's the straight deal.” Allerby smiled across his desk. “And if you ever breathe a word of this to the press, you'll never have lunch in this town again.”
Peter gulped audibly. “Maybe I don't want to hear it that bad.”
“Too late, Peter.” He released a thin stream of smoke toward the ceiling. “Townsend is a basket case.”
Neil Townsend was the actor who played JayJay Parsons. “I've heard the rumors.”
“Sure you have. You saw how he was at the end of last season. We closed the set and made everybody understand their jobs depended on keeping the secret. Which is why we managed to keep the lid on. But nothing and nobody could control Townsend when he was off duty. I'm surprised the secret has been kept this long.”
Allerby made a process of dumping his ash. “I'm telling you this so we can both save some time. My guess is, you arrived today with your spiel all worked out. You were going to remind me there's nothing like this on television today. Our rankings come and go, but there is a core audience that sticks with us through thick and thin. We generate more fan mail, our advertisers are happy, yada yada. How am I doing?”
The balloon Peter had been carrying since waking abruptly deflated. “I can write around him.”
“No you can't. JayJay Parsons
is
the show. And Townsend knows it.”
“So the news I've been reading about the show having run its courseâ”
“Rubbish. Total hogwash. But the public we're aiming at wouldn't swallow the truth.”
“Which is?”
“Townsend is finished.” Allerby pronounced the sentence with no emotion whatsoever. “He's a boozer, a druggy, a sex fiend. We've put him into rehab four times at studio expense. He switches addictions for the time he's inside, going for sugar when he can't get any other drug. His weight explodes.”
Peter felt the sweat trickle down the length of his spine, cold as an iced dagger. Ready to plunge in and cripple his career. He had held the job of
Heartland
's scriptwriter for the last season. The original writer was an old dog named Ben Picksley, who'd worked the Hollywood trenches for thirty-seven years. Picksley knew the players and the wars and the locations of too many corpses. He'd gotten his start on a Texas series where an old man and his three sons fought off the bad guys every Thursday night at nine. Ben had given Peter his first chance because Peter came cheap. Ben had also liked the fact that Peter didn't carry any film school habits, like smoking French unfiltered black-tobacco stink bombs or using terms like
erudite
or
predilection
in every sentence. Ben's formula for
Heartland
had been simple: one moral drama and one tornado per episode. The moral drama could have no more weight than a wet puppy, and the tornado had to come cheap. When Picksley had retired, Peter had gotten the tap. His fate and Townsend's were inextricably united.
