Heartland (3 page)

Peter said, “He can lose the weight.”

“He could do a lot of things,” Allerby agreed. “He could shape up. He could rein back the bad habits. He could stop hitting on every female extra that comes within radar range. He could learn his lines. He—”

A roar from the outer office silenced them. Allerby's only sign of displeasure was the way he thumped out his cigarillo. “Speak of the devil.”

The noise did not sound human at all. “That's him?”

Allerby's smile was rapier thin. A slit of humorless, bloodless flesh. “Don't you recognize our leading man?”

The door slammed back. Peter was so astounded by the sight he could not even rise from his seat.

The voice of Allerby's secretary emerged from behind the mountainous flesh. “I'm sorry, sir. He just would not listen.”

“That's all right, Gloria.”

“Off the show?
Off the show?
” The words were so slurred Peter could hardly make them out. “You cretin! I
am
the show.”

“Sit down, Neil, or I'll call Security and have you tossed from the lot. How would that look to the tabloids, I wonder. Leading man sprawled on the pavement outside the Centurion studios. Again.”

It was doubtful Neil Townsend understood what Allerby said. His eyes did a glazed trackless wander around the room. But the chief's frigid calm subdued the actor. Townsend grunted something unintelligible and started toward the chair next to Peter.

“No, not there. We'll need a crowbar to lever you out. Take the sofa. Gloria, give our star a hand, will you. That's it. Now then. What will you have, Neil? Coffee? A week at a fat farm?”

The man could have played a caricature of himself. His features were bloated, his skin splotchy, his eyes almost blind from whatever coursed through his veins. He spoke, but the words dribbled from his lips like crumbs.

“Yes, well, whatever it is you're telling us would be fascinating, I'm sure. If only I had time to find a translator well versed in Drug-eese. Which I don't.” Allerby turned to Peter. “I assume I don't need to say anything further.”

“I-I had no idea.”

“No, no one did.” Allerby fished out another cigarillo and poked it toward Townsend. “After last season's final episode I gave our star there an ultimatum. Sober up or else. So off he went to rehab. Five weeks later I got a call. Townsend had vanished. That was the last anybody heard from him until this weekend, when his agent phoned to say our Neil was home. The agent was less than pleased when I insisted on going by.”

Allerby lit his cigarette with a slim Dunhill lighter. He snapped the lid shut, blew out his smoke, and said, “I was right to fear the worst.”

“So it's over.” Peter stared, not at the mound of flesh but rather the end of his own career. One season of writing for a show that got the ax was nothing to light up his résumé. His body felt numb from the blow.

“Brace up, Peter. Your work is solid enough. Which is why I wanted to see you this morning.”

Peter knew what was coming. Hollywood was a very small town. People talked. Centurion had a prime-time drama that was in trouble. Peter had read several of the scripts. It was typical evening soap. A medical drama including incest, greed, murder, and too much wealth gone bad. But it was work. And regular work was hard to find. He had nothing else on offer. He'd be a fool to turn it down.

“We are looking for a writer with your savvy to help turn around—” Allerby was halted by a knock on his door. “What is this, LAX?”

But the head that poked in belonged to Britt Turner, director of
Heartland
. “Martin, hey, Gloria said you were busy but this can't wait. Hey, Peter.” Then he saw the man on the sofa. “Oh, wow.”

“Shut the door, Britt.”

“Sure. Right. But it won't do any good. This will be all over the lot in ninety seconds flat.” Britt moved toward the sofa. “Poor Neil.”

“He's not dead and buried yet, Britt.”

“Might as well be.” But the news did not seem to bother him. The director turned back to his boss. “You guys have got to come with me.”

“As you can see, we're busy with—”

“Martin, you've got to come
now
.” Britt was normally one of the most quietly contained men Peter had ever known. He directed his shows with a voice like a silken lash. Today, however, he was bouncing from one foot to the other. “We've found our new JayJay.”

Allerby's second cigarette of the day was pounded into the ashtray. “We've been through all that. The public won't go—”

“The public is going to eat this guy up, Martin. Forget a side order of fries. They're going to take him
raw
.”

Martin was already shaking his head. The studio chief knew hype when he smelled it. “I'm not buying. How many screen tests did we sit through?”

“Too many. So many I didn't even bother to come in for this one.”

Martin frowned. “I didn't authorize another test.”

“I know. But I was in my office when my AD phoned and said they had this guy. Look, just take a walk with me, okay?”

“You did a test this morning and you've got the film ready to show?”

“We didn't shoot anything yet. I stopped by the set and came straight here. This guy, Martin, don't look at me like that. I've never steered you wrong. I'm telling you,
this guy is JayJay Parsons
.”

The glutinous mound on the sofa shocked them with a sudden roar. Peter could smell the foul breath from across the room. The star thrashed about so hard he broke one of the sofa legs. He poured onto the carpet. It was a struggle, but he finally managed to make it to his feet. Only then did he emit his first intelligible words since his entrance.

“That role is
mine
!”

Neil Townsend staggered across the office and slammed the door open so hard it broke the top hinge. Somebody in the outer office screamed.

Martin called through the open doorway, “Gloria, have Security send a couple of men over to the
Heartland
set.”

His unflappable secretary asked, “Shall I say they have permission to shoot to kill?”

Britt gaped at the empty space as their star thundered down the Centurion hall. “Was it something I said?”

“Look at it this way.” The Centurion CEO reached for his phone, already on to the next deal. “All we need is a decent slasher-horror script and we're ready to roll.”

Chapter 4

J
ayJay Parsons leaned against the warehouse's interior wall. He turned his back to the impossible and focused on what was right there in front of his face. This was real. This metal. This bolt. This paint. This faint smell of dust and disinfectant. He was not dreaming, and this was not a mirage.

“Okay, where's the hick? No, Claire honey. Not you. The other one. Can somebody kick-start the guy?” The fellow talking was a human gnat. Just buzzing around, stinging whoever was closest. JayJay sighed and swung about. He knew gnats. They'd just keep pestering. They were also attracted to the smell of sweat. Well, JayJay was giving the gnat a ton to work off of.

“You. Male hick. You realize you're the reason we're all here, right? Good. Okay, so why don't we finally shoot this thing so we can let you go back to holding up that wall.”

The gnat had introduced himself as Kip Denderhoff, the assistant director, and then waited like the words were supposed to mean something. And they might have, if JayJay hadn't just spotted what was there at the other end of the building.

The two ladies had walked him across a huge concrete square, something they called a lot. Gladys and Hilda had led him into this building big as an indoor rodeo, big as outdoors with that afternoon sky painted across the back wall. Then at a snap of a switch the sun had risen inside the building, the lights were that bright. When JayJay's eyes had adjusted, his legs almost gave way.

Which was how he came to be standing by the side wall, picking at a fleck of loose paint.

“No, no, this won't do. The hick has sweated through his shirt. Where do they find these clowns?” Kip Denderhoff hefted his clipboard and did an angry pirouette. “Gladys, go get the hick another shirt.”

“I'll have to sew one up.”

“You're kidding me, right?” Kip wore a loose red shirt that had to be silk. When he waved his arms like he was doing now, the sleeves looked like sails caught in a nervous wind. “We've already wasted half a day on this idiot, and you're telling me we can't shoot a single lousy take?”

“Maybe if you stopped shouting at the guy he'd loosen up,” a voice muttered from JayJay's other side.

“I heard that. You want to reacquaint your shoes with the pavement, keep it up.” The assistant director looked at his watch and reeked exasperation. “All right. Twenty minutes, everybody. Gladys, do up two shirts so we don't have to go through this another time. And Makeup, where's Peggy?”

“Right beside you.”

“Look, Peggy, darling. His face is running. He might as well be wearing tan lava. Do something.”

“I can use the outdoor cake. It's guaranteed not to melt under desert sunlight.”

“Any reason why we didn't do this the first time?”

“It's a bear to get off and a lot of people are allergic—”

“If I want a diagram, Peggy, I'll bring in a real artist.” Kip raised his voice another notch. “Off the lights! And turn the a/c up a notch, I'm roasting!”

There was a sound like a hammer hitting an anvil, and the lights bright as outdoors dimmed to nothing. JayJay's chest lost its crimping iron band. He managed a decent breath. He pressed his fist to his heart, willing it to stop racing so.

“Here, hon.” Peggy was a muscular lady with a flinty voice and eyes to match. She pressed a hot damp towel into JayJay's hands. “Wipe off the gunk and we'll start over.”

“I still don't get why I'm supposed to be wearing this stuff anyway.”

“Don't tell me this is your first time on a set.”

“First time anywhere.” JayJay scrubbed his face clean, then saw what he'd done. “Lookit this. Now I've ruined your clean towel.”

“That's okay, hon. We've got plenty.” Peggy tilted her head to one side. Dark eyes glittered with humor and something more. “You shouldn't let the AD get to you so.”

“It isn't him. It's the whole shooting match.”

“I hear you.” She spun JayJay about. “See that door over there? Go find the welcome wagon and tell him you want a double espresso with a shot of butterscotch and a dollop of whipped cream. I'd suggest something stronger, but they'd come down on us both with a ton of trouble, after the misery we've had with Townsend.”

“Who's that?”

“Never you mind.” She prodded JayJay forward. “Just tell them you want one of Peggy's special pick-me-ups for a very hard day.”

JayJay managed to cross the warehouse floor without looking once at the thing cast in shadows now that the lights were off. But it didn't do him any good. He couldn't just pretend it had gone away. He had seen it. He had
touched
it. And the result had been a branding hot as any iron straight from the fire.

The shadows could not completely hide the fact that there, taking up the left-hand side of this huge building, was his home.

But not his home.

This cabin was segmented, like a giant had attacked it with scissors. Each room was split off from the other. One wall was missing from each room. His whole life, his whole
world
, chopped up and split apart.

And everybody kept watching him.

JayJay couldn't get a hold on how many people were in the building because they kept coming and going. JayJay had offered the strangers a couple of polite howdy's, but they'd just stared back. Mute as nervous cattle. All clustered together and staring at him like they were watching a ghost cross their path.

But soon as he pushed open the rear door and stepped into the sunlight, things only got worse.

Because leaning against the little chuck wagon was his sister. Clara. Wearing a blouse he had picked out for her special. Her sunbonnet was off and sat on the counter. And she was
smoking
.

“Clara!”

“Oh, please.” She dropped her cigarette to the concrete and ground it out with her boot. “Not you too.”

“You don't smoke!”

“Wait, let me guess. You're straight out of method school. Where was it, Chicago?” She looked at him, Clara but not Clara. His sister, but hard-eyed and giving him an attitude like he'd been caught doing something awful. “Never mind. This is the real world, bub. I don't care how much you look like my long-lost little brother. You want to do television, you arrive on time and you hit your mark and you deliver your lines. You read me?”

JayJay felt like his mind had been force-fed a pile of rocks, not words. Nothing she'd said made the tiniest bit of sense. He was trying to figure out what to ask her, when somebody or something bellowed from inside the building.

“Oh no.” Clara paled. “Don't tell me.”

The metal door slammed open. A beast staggered out.

JayJay gripped the counter. The nightmares just kept piling on top of one another.

He felt like he was staring into a funhouse mirror. This distorted beast of a twin lurched toward them, his arms waving and a foul stream spewing from his mouth.

JayJay flushed at what he was hearing. Or at least what he thought the stranger was yelling. The words were so slurred and distorted it was hard to be certain. But he knew a drunk. And his sister was scared. There was just one thing to do.

JayJay stepped forward. “Now you just hush up, mister. There's women in range.”

The man blinked and swayed. JayJay had seen bulls do the very same thing. Trying to decide whether to charge. “Don't you go pawing the earth, now. You just turn yourself around and head on back where you came from.”