L.A. Mental (19 page)

Forty-Six

“O
kay, cut,” Dustin Sperry called out, with an exasperated wave of his hand.

The action—just before the FX kicked in, with Lisa about to free Chris Breen as he hung in an invisible harness over the chasm—stopped. All the momentum that had been gathering, including a lot of sweaty, quivering flesh, stopped with it.

Sperry, seated on a telescoping boom, knuckled his Aussie bush hat up his forehead and sank back, rubbing his eyes.

“Lisa, does the term ‘phoning it in' mean anything to you?” he said.

Her eyes widened in outrage. “Oh,
fuck
you, Dustin. I'm right on track, and so is everybody else. You're the one who's hanging it up.”

As she stalked over to face off with him, Chris Breen twisted his dangling body toward one of the technicians.

“Get me out of this thing, will you?” he said. The tech hurried to him to release him from his harness, and the other cast members broke ranks and drifted aside. There was a distinct sense of their frustration at slamming into a brick wall from a kind of spat that had grown too familiar.

“You're obviously distracted, honey,” Sperry said condescendingly. “So why don't you ask your boyfriend to leave, and then let's do what we're getting paid for? Take five, everybody.”

“What
bull
shit,” she said. But I raised my hand to signal okay, and I walked back outside.

It
was
bullshit. I'd been hesitant about coming today, precisely because I was worried that somebody might object. But she'd assured me that having guest observers was common, she'd cleared it with the rest of the cast, and she'd also told Sperry, who'd shrugged it off like it was beneath his notice. Now he was using it as a pretext to take a shot at both of us.

I was annoyed, of course; in fact, I was thinking about how much I'd love to jerk that ridiculous fucking hat down around his ears. But I wasn't going to cause a fuss and throw another wrench into this already troubled project.

Lisa came hurrying out after me. “I'm sorry, Tom,” she said. “It's just one of his two-bit power plays.”

“I know—it's fine. And you'd have any audience in the world drooling into their popcorn.”

She smiled, but then her eyes got suddenly serious. “You're the one who's been phoning it in.”

I blinked, astonished.

“You know what I mean,” she said. “I've been letting it slide, but we've got to get straight. Let's talk later.” She touched my cheek, then went back inside.

Well, I shouldn't have been surprised. Of course she'd picked up on my uneasiness about her; I was no actor anyway, and if there was anybody who could see right through me, it was Lisa.

This was Friday, with the set clearing off for the weekend; she and I planned to stay here in the Lodge tonight. There was no way I could evade a close-range grilling from her. I couldn't tell her the full truth, but I wasn't about to try to lie.

She was not going to be happy, and she was right.

As I started walking out of the courtyard, I passed by several of the
Nhang
extras standing in a group, taking a break until things settled down inside. In this scene they played temple guards; they were wearing breastplate armor and plumed helmets, and carrying wicked-looking spears. They didn't look friendly, but then, they weren't supposed to.

Then I realized that they weren't just unfriendly—they were all looking straight at me, with stares full of menace. A couple of them were toying with their spears, twirling them slowly or flexing their hands on the shafts.

Why the hell would they bring their spears out here on a break?

I stared back at them, my breath actually stopped in my lungs. They were like a bomb just a hair away from exploding.

But just as my fear started to register in my conscious mind, it was swept aside by the same kind of sudden, almost blinding fury I'd felt at Dustin Sperry when I'd left the Lodge that first time. In those few seconds, I didn't
care
what happened. Not about anything, not a shred.

“If you hear somebody busting off shotgun rounds over there,” I said, jerking my head in the direction of the Lodge, “it'll be me, tuning up my aim.”

I turned my back and started away, my shoulders tensed for the thump of a blade between them.

I heard one of them spit venomously. But that was all.

By the time I got to the security gate and left the set, my temporary bravado had faded. I tried to tell myself that I'd imagined or at least exaggerated the incident. But I hadn't.

And now I was starting to think about what had
caused
that sudden flash of murderous rage between total strangers, over nothing whatever. The other things like it that had happened weeks ago, I was sure, were the doings of Kelso's nanos and Cynthia's pendant. But he was long gone, and she was nowhere nearby.

Forty-Seven

I
did have several guns stored in a safe at the Lodge—hunting rifles, shotguns, and some other pieces accumulated by Crandall men over the last few generations. I'd gotten quite familiar with them when I was younger, and I'd actually been a pretty good shot, although I hadn't touched one in years. But my little display of posturing had been dumb enough; I wasn't going to add to it by blasting a twelve-gauge into the air.

But I did need to work out what had just happened. When I left the film set, I kept on walking into the woods instead of going straight to the Lodge.

Spring was turning to summer; the afternoon was lovely, edging toward warm but just right in the shade of the trees. I hadn't wandered around back here much in recent years, but the terrain was imprinted on my memory from childhood. Nothing significant had changed except for the feeding site that Kelso had staked out for the vultures, and I'd come back up here soon after Venner's raid and gotten rid of every trace of it. Still, as I got close, I imagined that rotting beef smell lingering in the air. I skirted it, walked on a ways, then cut over to the creek and hunkered down to splash cold water on my face. That and the walking both helped. I started back homeward along the bank, taking my time.

There were still some other loose ends hanging around. When the set got dismantled a few weeks from now, they'd find the underground trailer, which would cause some head scratching. And eventually, people were going to realize that Kelso wasn't really in Sweden. But those weren't my problems, and once Parallax Productions was gone, I could discreetly take care of any leftover details that did fall to me. It had seemed like, on that level, the situation was coming under control.

But I'd never quite lost the gut feeling that the way it had wrapped up was simply too neat and easy.

There were all kinds of potential wild cards that I didn't know about and that still might come into play. But the one I did know about was the single thing that bothered me most, and it bothered me a lot more after my run-in just now with the
Nhang
extras.

Cynthia.

Besides Kelso, she was the first person who came to mind as being capable of using the nanos to create rage like that. What was going on with her these days—really? Everything I knew about her suggested that she was amoral and very smart in a predatory way, with a keen eye for weakness and no hesitations about acting on it.

Enough so that she was conning Venner? Allowing him to
think
he had her under control, while she was quietly running her own game?

Maybe including revenge on the guy who'd gotten her busted? I sure hadn't forgotten that look of hatred she'd given me as the handcuffs went on her wrists.

My little hike took about an hour all told; I got back to the Lodge around four. I poured a hefty slug of Bombay on the rocks, took it out to the porch, and watched the film set closing down for the weekend—the crew securing equipment, actors trekking in and out of makeup trailers, and the parade of vehicles starting back to L.A.

Lisa would be here soon.

I had one more worry that was linked to all this, and now it was back on my radar, too. She was still wearing the jade bracelet that Kelso had given her. I had wondered briefly if it might contain a microtransmitter that affected my feelings for her. But with Kelso gone, the feelings were still here; I'd assumed that he had to be around to operate the nanotechnology; and therefore, with relief, I'd decided he must not have anything to do with this.

But what if he
didn't
have to be around? Maybe the bracelet was on some kind of automatic pilot. Maybe someone else—like Cynthia—could operate it. Maybe Lisa herself.

I wanted to stay in love with her, and I was afraid to find out.

Forty-Eight

L
isa got off the set about half an hour later and came walking across the meadow toward the Lodge, looking like she belonged in this century again, wearing her usual hangout attire of jeans and a sweater. I went out to meet her, made her a drink and another for myself, and we settled on the porch.

For a few minutes we chatted, mostly about how the scene filming had finished out. About the same as everything else, was her take; adequate, but it could have been a whole lot better. At least it was a wrap.

But really, we were sparring, with the tension of something brittle between us that was about to snap. The pauses got longer.

Finally, after one of them, she leaned forward and fixed me with those wonderful Mediterranean green eyes.

“You going to make me drag it out of you?” she said.

I exhaled. “Sorry. I'm not trying to be like that. I just can't find a good way to say any of this.”

“So there
is
something.”

“Yeah.”

“Bad?”

My gaze moved of its own accord to the vultures; they'd been straggling out for the past hour and now were filling the sky.

“Pretty bad,” I said.

“And it's got something to do with me?”

“I'm not sure. There are connections I don't understand.”

Her hand rested on her chair arm, her slim fingers moving slightly like they were smoothing it down. Kelso's bracelet clasped her wrist—possessively, it suddenly seemed.

“You know, for a guy who comes across so straight, you sure can spin a lot of loops,” she said.

“I didn't plan it that way, believe me. It's not that I don't want to tell you—I can't, and I can't even tell you why.” I hesitated, but I couldn't keep playing guessing games with her. I took it one more step. “I think it's the same for you—there are things you're holding back because you feel like you have to.”

A cautious tinge came into her gaze. “Such as?”

“Such as the way we met—you and Dustin at the stream, you calling me later, all that—did it really just
happen
all by itself, like it seemed?”

Her hand stopped moving, just for a beat. But it was answer enough.

“That's not what this is about, Lisa—not really,” I said. “It's about Kelso, Parallax—the
underbelly
, I can't think of a better word. Whatever you know, please tell me. It's very, very important.”

A long fifteen seconds passed.

Then she said, “Gunnar's not coming back, is he?”

I didn't answer. I didn't have to.

She stood up, leaving her barely touched drink on the table, and went inside. When she came out a couple of minutes later, she had her overnight bag slung over her shoulder.

I'd been braced for this, but it was still a numbing shock.

“I'll call you, okay?” she said. She'd put on sunglasses, and I couldn't see her eyes. There might have been a tiny tremor in her voice.

I stepped over to her and put my hands lightly on her waist.

“I'm crazy about you,” I said. “You know that, don't you?”

Her face turned aside. “Tom—this started out simple, but now it's really complicated. I need time to think.” She pulled away from me and hurried down the steps.

“Lisa, will you do one thing for me?” I called after her.

She took several more steps without slowing down, but finally stopped and half turned back toward me.

“Get rid of that bracelet,” I said. “Put it in a safe-deposit box, or mail it to your mother. Just keep it someplace far away for a while.”

I could see her mouth open slightly—maybe in bewilderment at what the hell I was getting at.

Maybe in dismay that I'd caught on.

She started walking again. Away.

I went inside and poured another drink, a stopgap attempt to stave off what I knew was coming—the slow spreading ache of cold emptiness, the nothing that replaced the intoxicating something, the aloneness you'd been so used to for so long that you hardly gave it a thought until it disappeared in love.

Forty-Nine

I
hadn't spent a night in the Lodge since Parallax had leased the property—I'd hardly been inside it at all. This wasn't a cheerful homecoming. I'd looked forward to some private time here with Lisa, but with her gone, it just felt empty; and it's always a little weird to come back to your place after strangers have been staying there. Even if they take good care of it, things aren't quite the way you left them, and it somehow throws you off.

But there was a task that needed taking care of eventually, and I figured I might as well get a start on it. Kelso still had belongings here—Venner's people had deliberately left them to reinforce the story that he'd be coming back—and there were probably some other Parallax remnants around. Once they finished filming and pulled up stakes, I intended to get rid of it all—wipe the place clean of their presence. First step was to look the situation over, assess what there was and what to do with it.

As I walked through the rooms, I saw that they
had
taken good care of it physically. Everything was pristine, the kitchen even emptied of perishables; probably they'd been using professional cleaners, and someone must have told them that the place would be vacant for a while.

If I hadn't known what I did about the less apparent aspects of their occupancy, I'd have been pleased.

There were a few items of women's clothing in the upstairs bedroom I'd seen Cynthia Trask and Dustin Sperry coming out of; probably they were hers, the kind of things she'd keep around for occasional overnight stays. Kelso had spent a lot more time here and occupied the master bedroom, although he didn't have much in the way of wardrobe or personal belongings, either. On that count, he seemed pretty spartan.

He'd taken over another room as an office or den; it looked more intended for relaxing rather than serious work. A small wooden troll on the mantel labeled “Maxwell,” presumably Maxwell's demon, seemed intended as a scientist's joke. The book collection was mostly intellectual nonfiction like history, philosophy, and abstruse science texts in several languages. A large desk was scattered with stacks of papers and the usual computer accessories, although Venner's team had seized his laptop. They'd also rifled the room quickly, but this office was just for show, like Kelso's public persona; he'd kept anything important in his underground lab.

Well, now I had a rough inventory of the stuff to get rid of—the question was what to do with it. The best course would probably be to tell Paul to come haul it off; if he did, it would be up to Parallax from there, and I'd be out of the loop. My guess was that he'd drag his feet, but then I'd be justified in handling it myself, and if anybody complained later, too bad—they'd had their chance. The clothing and computer equipment could go to a charity outlet, and I'd just dump Kelso's personal effects; losing the books would be a shame, but there'd be plenty of other copies left in the world for the few people who could make sense of them.

I spent a couple of minutes flipping through the books, looking for papers, notes, marked passages—anything that might give an insight into his true research. I still didn't know any detailed specifics as to how his nanotech system worked, and I couldn't risk trying to get information from experts; I was under Venner's orders to pretend the whole thing had never happened. Maybe someday down the line I'd try to do some discreet follow-up—get a spectroscopic analysis of the nanoparticles to find out their composition, then take that information to Hans Blaustein and see what he could make of it.

But I had done a fair amount of private looking around online these past few weeks, working off what Hans had told me, and I'd come up with some ideas that might feasibly be connected.

There was very little Internet mention of Kelso or Parallax, no indications of where he'd been for the couple of decades before he surfaced in L.A.; he must have been pursuing his research in private, and it seemed clear that he'd intentionally kept a low profile. But he had been at the Planck Institute in Munich in the 1980s, and I came across a few references to his work in resonance theory, which originally addressed phenomena like the motion of clock pendulums and the vibrations of musical instruments. But like so much else in science, it had gotten vastly more complex—and included the study of how resonators, receptive substances, could be caused to vibrate by manipulation of their subatomic energy structures.

If Kelso's nanoparticles were resonators—which he might even have manufactured himself, tailor-made for enhanced capability—and they suffused the brain's neural complexes, then their vibration, caused by a microwave signal via cell phone or other transmitter, might agitate the neurons enough to kick them into high gear. And resonance was only one of many possible mechanisms. My grasp of physics was too feeble to rate their suitability, but electromagnetism, subatomic particle spin, wave motion, various kinds of fields and the forces that operated in them, all overlapping and interacting in infinitely complicated and mysterious ways, also might be candidates for creating the needed effect.

However it was accomplished, the next crucial step would seem to be where Kelso's genius really came into play. The brain's neural structure was well mapped by now, including the complexes that influenced emotions and the wave frequencies they emitted. Kelso would have had to correlate the frequencies of his microwave signals to those of the particular nerve complexes he wanted to affect. Different signals would stimulate different emotional responses—anger, euphoria, confusion—and he'd obviously also figured out how to hit the buttons for just plain pain. He'd have been able to control the intensity of the signal as well.

And another aspect had occurred to me. Almost all humans have very similar brain-wave patterns. A broad-range frequency blast that was nonspecific might, for instance, stir up anger in any subjects it reached, including a crowd all at once. But the possibility of refinement existed if the signals were correlated to the subtle variations of
individual
brain-wave patterns—and there were supercomputers that could run those scans within seconds, from a mile away, without the subject ever knowing it. If Kelso had done that when he'd had the opportunity—with Parallax members, or me—he might have been able to create signal patterns precise enough to strongly affect the targeted subject, while someone standing right next to him might feel it only mildly or not at all. These people would all have what amounted to personal theme songs, which Kelso could play and get them dancing to the tune. That might also help to explain why he and Cynthia seemed immune—the frequencies were carefully calculated to stay clear of their own microranges.

My search through Kelso's books turned up nothing of interest—most were older texts that he might once have used, but not for many years, like the tomes that lined the walls of lawyers' offices. The desk was no more help. The drawers contained standard supplies; the papers on top seemed mostly related to the film, with a sprinkling of computer printouts, math and graphics, suggesting that he relaxed by dabbling in the realm of genius. It was all part of the display to impress the Parallax members and cover his secret work.

Then, as I was riffling through the papers, my gaze was caught by a handwritten name.

Crandall. It was followed by the number 850K.

I pulled the paper out of the stack and studied it—a memo related to the film budget, projecting expenses for the month of June. It looked like Kelso had been working out how to cover the costs, maybe talking to someone on the phone and jotting down notes. He'd written several other names, too; a couple had question marks after them, but most were also followed by figures: 500K, 1.2M, 380K.

There was only one meaning for this that I could think of. These were investors, with the amounts they were contributing toward the budget—$850,000 from Paul, and that was for the month of June alone.