High Fall (20 page)

They had killed it, just like they killed Greg. They were so smug that they teased him with the new blonde doing the Move. But he wasn’t rigid; he’d given them another chance. The screenplay could be revised for the blonde.

And they wouldn’t let him near her.

They owed him!

And then they killed her, too.

Studios kept screwing writers. Well, not anymore.

He glared at the red Jeep.
Come on! Come on!

K
IERNAN PULLED OUT OF
Summit-Arts Studios lot. It was already too late to be in L.A. Ten-lane roads through the center of the city should have made driving a breeze. Breeze indeed. More like dead air. She pulled onto the freeway on-ramp and sat waiting as the entry light let on one car at a time. Behind her, a Mercedes driver talked on his cellular phone. Behind him, an old blue VW bug with a board for a bumper edged to the left, as if seeing ahead to the front of the line were going to make it move faster.

She cleared the light onto the freeway and settled into the second gear pace. She reached for the phone. Two cars behind her, the Mercedes pulled into traffic, followed snout-to-tail by the bug. Bug must have cut the light. The fine for that was more than the car was worth.

She called Tchernak. The line was busy. Was Persis at BakDat calling with the results of the background checks? Or was it Tchernak’s agent with an offer from the Rams?

She dialed again, this time to Modoc County information, and once more.

“High Country Gymnastics Academy.”

“I need to speak to the owner or the coach.”

“One and the same. Jerry Talbot. He’s almost through supervising beginners’ warm-ups. Hang on.”

In the distance she could hear the gruff calls of a male voice. Gymnastics had come into its own since she spent phys. ed. periods in the corner of the high school gym, struggling with handstand variations on the balance beam while the basketball team practiced twenty feet away. But High Country would hardly be a major player on the national scene. She pictured the facility as similar to her own gym: full of tiny girls with silent, serious faces who looked like they’d have to be taught to smile. They’d be on the mats, balanced on their buttocks, legs jackknifed up by abdominal muscles hard as a judge’s stare. Or standing to the side, vibrating in place as they waited to learn to mount the uneven bars. Another mat would hold older boys proudly chalking their hands before being lifted to the still rings.

“Jerry Talbot here. How can I help you? I’ve only got a couple of minutes.”

Good. Brevity would save her explanation. “I’m working with Summit-Arts Studios. We need some background on Lark Sondervoil for the memorial book. Personal information to go with the wonderful publicity shots we’ve got of her.” She felt a pang of guilt, but there was no time to rationalize now. “I’m sorry to have to call you so soon after you’ve heard the tragic news, but—”

“No, no … that’s all right.”

“Did you train Lark?”

“Her last two years. Before that, it was Liz Putnam, but she retired and moved to Sacramento.”

“What kind of student was Lark?”

As she’d expected, he said, “The best. A real hard worker. She’d go over and over anything you taught her until she got it firmly in her mind. Then she’d practice it hour after hour, day after day, until it was second nature.”

“Needed to get away from home.” The words were out of Kiernan’s mouth before she realized it; it hadn’t even been a question. She could see the padded corner of the gym in Baltimore and feel the relief that had swept over her each day as she walked in.

Talbot hadn’t replied.

Quickly, she added, “I won’t put anything negative about her family in the book. I’m just trying to get a picture of her, a jumping-off place for myself so I can capture the real Lark.”

“Well, okay,” he said slowly. “You know Lark was her real name. Guess that gives you an idea about her parents. Old hippies. Musta done a lotta drugs early on. But when I knew them, it was liquor. They weren’t abusive or anything, but they didn’t pay on time. If they said they were going to do something, like provide cookies for one of the fundraisers, you could count on them to flake out—and be pissed off if you brought it up. Stuff like that. Who knows what else? Lark was real protective of them. As soon as she was old enough, she worked to cover her tuition. But parents like that—well, it had to be hard on Lark, as meticulous as she was.”

And working there extra hours had given her a valid reason to be not at home, Kiernan thought. Had Lark, like herself, stayed out too late, flirted with boys in leather jackets with slicked-back hair, taken on every dare and stretched it farther? “Did she have a wild streak?”

“Far from it. She was the most responsible kid in the gym. With those parents, I guess she’d have to have been.”

Kiernan felt a flash of separation, and disappointment. The good kid, one of those she had scorned. “Was she a natural athlete?”

“No way. She had a sort of physical dyslexia, like there was a roadblock between the concept of a trick and getting her body to do it. Good athletes don’t even have to think about most of their moves. But Lark couldn’t even dribble a basketball without watching both the ball and her hand. And even then anyone could have made a steal.”

“How did she survive in gymnastics?”

“Determination. Lots of personal attention. Centuries of repetition. With that roadblock of hers, we had to build bypass highways—that’s the way we talked about it—but once they were in place, they were as good as any other road. When she finally ‘got’ a trick, it was so well-etched into her map that she could do it on automatic. She wasn’t particularly creative or imaginative, but she was a craftsman par excellence.”

A craftsman. She
was
disappointed. But maybe that was why Lark had mastered the Gaige Move when she hadn’t. She had always been the kid who took chances, the one who had to leave her imprint on whatever she did. She could have been the kid to take the Move farther, if she could have gotten the Move itself. And yet Lark … “So once she’d practiced a routine and checked the layout, she’d go into automatic?”

“More like she’d go inside. If you’re not an athlete, it won’t make much sense to you.”

Kiernan’s jaw tightened. She hadn’t competed in over twenty years, but still, to have him assume she was on the outside with her nose pressed against the glass … even though he thought he was talking to a publicist, not to Kiernan O’Shaughnessy, who had taken second in the Nationals …

“Look, you said you were with the studio. Lark was very good. Why do you need to know more—”

“Sorry,” she said, shifting back into persona. “I know you’re busy. I’m afraid I got sidetracked, because it’s so impressive to know she could have accomplished so much with that handicap. Inspiring. She would have been a wonderful teacher.”

“That was our hope for her. But she was too good to stay up here in the mountains. She wanted the Olympics, of course. They all do. She wasn’t that good, but she thought she was. Too bad she never got to the trials.”

Never even got the chance to try for it! God, she felt for Lark. It was like finishing college only to be told they’d stopped giving diplomas, or stopped giving them to people like you, or just to you. “Why not?”

“Her parents.” The disgust was clear in his voice. “Ray,” he called, half muffling the receiver, “cover for me a few minutes, okay? Sorry,” he said, returning his attention to the phone conversation. “I guess you’re aware that Lark’s parents were killed in an auto crash. Happened the week before the trials. Lark was devastated. I don’t know which bothered her most—their deaths or missing the trials. Well, at that age all that stuff mixes together, and kids don’t know themselves what they’re overwhelmed by. But Lark was never quite the same after that. In a way her life was easier without her parents to worry about. But I guess it was too late for her to have a childhood. She threw herself into practice with as much determination as before, but the hope was gone. And why not? She had no goal. And then she decided on Hollywood, a career in the movies. I had my reservations, I’ll tell you, but the girl was a beauty, and I figured that would get her the extra time she needed. Guys will always give a pretty woman a break.” He lowered his voice, and Kiernan had the feeling he had his hand cupped over the speaker. “We’ve got one little girl now—plain as porridge. But good; she can do release moves on the uneven bars like no ten-year-old I’ve ever seen. Do you think the judges ever give her a break? The cute ones they give the benefit of the doubt, an extra tenth here, an oh-five there. But this kid—it’s like they think she made herself plain just to spite them. You’d think adults would have a little compassion; or fairness.”

She sighed. “Yeah, you’d think. Mr. Talbot,” she said slowly, “you had hesitations about Lark coming to Hollywood. Why? Did she seem too trusting?”

“Hardly. Look, the girl had had a lousy childhood. It made sense that she was locked up emotionally, like she lived inside a moat. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t
want
to trust someone. She was probably afraid; maybe she didn’t know how. In some ways she was an adult; in others a kid. You know how teenagers are. She’d have a crush on a guy, and she couldn’t set limits or see consequences. Guess that was her parents coming out in her. They had no sense of limits at all. Luckily, Lark was a busy kid, so she didn’t have time to go off the deep end much.”

“Did you talk to her a lot after she got to L.A.?”

“Never. I was hoping to hear from her, though. Kids in the gym were dying to know what it was like to be a real stunt woman.”

“I can imagine. Did you ever call her?”

“Had no number for her. I thought she’d call us, or maybe I just hoped. I guess I wasn’t surprised. You know how kids are,” he added, as if fearful that he’d said too much.

“Just one more question. How did Lark get to Hollywood, into the movie business?”

“She called someone down there for a screen test. Then she just up and went. Said she wasn’t going to miss out again.”

“They don’t do screen tests for stunt doubles. Stunt players get known by word of mouth. If they’re called, they send in tapes of their work.”

“Guess Lark knew the right mouth.”

“Whose?”

“Got me. You’re with the studio. I assumed he must be one of yours.”

“Did you know,” she said quickly, “that Lark added an extra twist to the Gaige Move?”

“Really,” he said, the pride clear in his voice. “But you mean up there on the bluff, when she died.”

“Right. But she did it. She took the Move to a new level. But how did she do that? You yourself said she wasn’t creative.”

“Got me. She must have learned it down there.” From the gym came sounds of a crash. “Gotta go.”

Was Cary Bleeker the man Lark had called? If not, he’d know who was, or he damned well could find out. Replacing the receiver, she glanced at her watch. It was after three. No chance of her making La Jolla before six, or more likely seven. Now the big question was, would Bleeker and the film company still be there.

“Y
OU’RE HOME,
T
CHERNAK?
”

“You calling from the car?” Even though he didn’t mention his oft-repeated dictum—phoning and driving should be mutually exclusive—Kiernan could hear the censure in his voice.

She didn’t approve of the distraction for other drivers. And she tried to avoid it herself, but not, as she had been quick to point out to Tchernak, because she wasn’t competent. Her goal was to keep both hands on the wheel in case she could slice into the left-hand lane, whip around a four-wheel slug, or block an eighteen-wheeler from cutting in front of her and plodding along in first gear, or do any of a number of things Tchernak tagged “adolescent.” But the lure of speeding was not a temptation that she was likely to face on the I-5. “If it weren’t for lifting the phone, there’d be no movement here at all.”

“Huh? Oh, you’re on the freeway and you didn’t give the CHP time to clear a lane for you?”

“Sarcasm is so unattractive in hired help.”

In the background she could hear panting. She smiled. Tchernak himself sounded short of breath—the familiar “doing reps” breath pattern. “How was the
Edge of Disaster
set?”

“Didn’t shoot today,” he got out between great heaving exhalations that almost blocked out the increasingly enthusiastic panting.

“Summit-Arts canceled the day’s schedule? Because of Lark’s death? More sensitivity than I would have expected.”

“Had to. Police questioning.”

“Rats, so we’re back to the start.” She slammed on the brakes inches from the fender of a vintage Corvette that had jerked to a stop. “The Mercedes behind me’s been riding my tail since I got on the freeway. Volkswagen behind him’s just about in his trunk. Guy in front of me’s squirting suntan lotion and he’s got his head tilted back so far he could be looking me in the eye. He’s so busy slathering his face he can barely handle his phone.”

“He driving with his knees, Kiernan?”

“He’s not driving at all. A pickup just cut in front of him. Oh, shit, look at that! A panel truck floated in behind the pickup. With the amount of room he’s left in front of him, the Queen Mary could cut in!”

“Maybe he’ll grease the phone and drop it in the fast lane. No, wait, what was I thinking of? You’re in the fast lane, right?”

“There is no fast lane. I’m merely in the more easterly line of seats. But the guy in the Corvette, he could have had his face lifted in less time than he’s been working on it. I’ve been watching that face for half an hour, Tchernak; the only thing his work is doing is proving the Law of Diminishing Returns.” She edged the car forward.

“Fortunately, the opposite is true here.” Tchernak’s breath sounded more normal. In the background the panting was more evenly spaced but no less insistent. “You are about to appreciate how valuable an experienced offensive lineman is in our investigative business.”

Our
business—just what she’d been afraid of.
“My
business.”

“Offensive linemen don’t give up,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “I hung around the set. Never got near Bleeker, but when the grips—the heavy-duty movers, to you uninitiated—needed help, who do you think they were thankful to have?”