The Last Whisper in the Dark: A Novel (17 page)

He let out a knowing grin that tilted too far to the left. “The twenty thousand?”

“I already took that,” I told him. “You’re going to get on the horn today and contact some of your friends on the West Coast. My sister Airedale is an actress. She’s sixteen and she’s good. She’s also a real beauty. Get her some auditions. Get her a couple of walk-ons and cameos. Connect her with a good acting teacher, a vocal coach, all of that. I want her set up somewhere nice in Los Angeles so I don’t have to worry about her.”

His sneer also tilted to the left. “That’s impossible.”

“You’re a dream-maker. So make it happen.”

“I tell you it’s absurd. Do you think I’d care anything about the indie horror film industry if I still had my connections in Hollywood? If I had any choice at all?”

“You don’t know anybody anymore?” I said. “All those guys on your wall? You burned all your bridges?”

“I lit the fire to some of them. Others blew up or fell over on their own. That’s how it is.”

“That’s how it is for a prick like you. You still know the town. You know other old coots just like you. I bet you have a favor or two that’s still owed you. You can motivate Will into helping out. He’s probably got a few pals left. I’m not asking for Oscar gold or a ten-million-dollar offer. Just a little action getting her started.”

He scoffed. He was used to it. Heuge head along

The fatigue hit me on the drive home. The ass-kicking,
adrenaline high, and three days of overmedication had me crashing, almost literally. I was weaving so badly on the LIE that I exited the first chance I got. I took the back streets to the house. I pulled into the driveway and nearly plowed into my father’s car. JFK knew there was something wrong and crawled out from under the porch and followed me inside. I climbed into bed and he lay at the foot of the mattress.

My phone kept ringing. I had it on vibrate w“It wasnplashich was even more annoying as it danced across my nightstand. I stuck it between the mattress and the box spring. Over the next couple of hours it went off a few more times and I felt the vibrations like the massaging magic fingers of a cheap nooner motel.

Every time the phone went off I was roused from troubled dreams that immediately drew me back down into them. I sweated out the pills. At some point I got up and took another Perc. I listened for Dale’s voice. I saw myself at the top of the Montauk Lighthouse, holding hands with Kimmy on the catwalk deck. It was windy. Her wedding veil passed in front of my eyes. I think we jumped or maybe I pushed her.

When I woke up Collie was sitting in a chair beside the bed, holding an uncapped bottle of beer, watching me sleep.

“Hey,” John said. “Your dad let me in. He told me to just come up.” He proffered the beer. “He really puts them away, doesn’t he? It’s barely … I don’t know … one in the afternoon, and he had a row of empties along the porch rail. He handed me a couple of bottles. I guess he wanted me to give you one.”

I reached for the Percs. I threw another one down dry. I was running out. I had to raid a few more medicine cabinets. The pill got stuck halfway down my throat. I grabbed the beer and took a deep pull. It wasn’t until the bottle was a third of the way empty that I realized it was nonalcoholic.

I wondered if giving John the extra beer was my father’s way of letting me know he was trying to quit drinking. I wondered if I would question every action of his from here on out.

“Those are Percocet, aren’t they? Threw my back out once doing some handheld camera work. You shouldn’t be drinking with them.”

“It’s nonalcoholic, John,” I said. I got up and washed my face, dumped the beer down the sink, combed my hair, and threw on fresh clothes. I had the twenty g’s in a hidden cache behind the toilet tank. I grabbed half of it and stuck the wedge at the small of my back, nestled in my waistband. When I returned, John was looking at the backyard. He’d opened the window a half inch and an icy autumn breeze blew in. I liked the feel of it.

“Did Perry talk to you?” I asked.

“He did. How did you know that?”

“He mentioned some things to me during our conversation. He’s got a lot of faith in you. He seemed sorry he didn’t support your career more earlier on.”

“I told you, he’s changed. He gave me contact information for friends in the industry. He’s never done anything like that before. He thinks I can start over again out in L.A. He said he was too rough on my documentaries and other projects.” John’s eyes grew moist. All any of us really want is our fathers and forefathers to give us a nod now and then. “And he asked me to help Dale too.” John reached into his pocket and unfolded a piece of paper. “He listed casting agents, voice coaches, managerial teams.”

“He’s got a big heart.”

“Why didn’t you tell me yesterday that Dale wanted to go to the West Coast?”

I rolled with it. “She only mentioned it after I got home. I called—” I had to chew my tongue to massage the word loose. “—Grandpa up and asked him for the names of some scouts and acting teachers. in a bikini and high heels."> l”

“She’ll be leaving the show. Leaving
ROGUES
.”

“Yes.”

He roamed my room as if it were his own, touching things, observing, trying to fill in whatever gaps he had about me. The place was pretty barren, and I wondered what that told him.

“Look,” he said, “about yesterday, I’m sorry I took off on you the way I did.”

“It’s all right.”

“But my dad, he’s sort of an emotional type. Seeing your mom again, talking to you about better days, the good old days, and knowing Grandpa only has a little time left, it all caught up with him and hit him hard. He wanted the two of us to visit my mom’s grave together. The cemetery’s just a mile down the road from the house, I used to walk there all the time, pick wildflowers, silly, yeah? But she liked wildflowers, so I picked them, would put them on her grave. It’s a nice cemetery, looks more like a park, right? Clean, well maintained, grass is trimmed, the trees are beautifully landscaped. It had been a while since we’d been there. We thought you’d still be sitting with Grandma when we got back, but you and your mother were gone. Why didn’t you stay longer?”

“We’re sort of emotional types too.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay. I can see that. I can understand that.”

I reached out and put a hand on my cousin’s shoulder. “How do you feel about it, John? Are you willing to go back to Los Angeles?”

He brightened. “Of course. It’s been my dream to try again. I guess I’ve been scared to make the effort, a truly serious effort, because
I’ve already had my ass handed to me once, but if my grandfather has some faith in me, if he’s learned to put his faith in me, and he’s willing to back me, then I don’t see why I shouldn’t try. I’ve got some cachet now, believe it or not. My horror flicks are pretty hot, they move well, the fans know me.” The planes of his face fell into a frown. “But I don’t think I really understand what anybody expects me to do for Dale. I mean, I haven’t even met her. She doesn’t know me at all. Aren’t we getting ahead of ourselves a little? It all feels … rushed, you know?”

“That’s how you know it’s right. When everything comes together to move you forward to a particular place. Fortune favors the bold.”

“You’re worried about her. You’re worried she’ll get in deeper with Simon Ketch. You want her off the Web show.”

“I do,” I admitted. “And you’re going to help me do just that.” I pulled out the ten grand. “Here. It’s just some start-up cash. So you can rent a nice place.”

He tried to back away. “You don’t have to give me money. I have money.”

“Take it anyhow. I expect you to watch over my little sister while she navigates her way through a business that ruins a lot of people. You already know something about it. Take advantage of your name and use it to open doors. Don’t let Will’s or Perry’s failures shove you into a corner. Use their earlier successes as a springboard, John.”

“You sound like you want to come with us.”

I had this many times beforeetpn’t thought about it. “Maybe I’ll pay you a visit a couple months down the line.”

“Right.” His voice was full of vigor. He hadn’t had a good shot of optimism in a while. “Yes, absolutely. I tried to make it in the biz, but not hard enough. Grandpa … my dad … they never thought I should go into moviemaking in the first place. They kept saying I didn’t have the aptitude. The right attitude.”

“Prove them wrong. Even more wrong than they already are.”

“I’ll try,” he said. “I want to do a documentary on Collie too.”

“Oh Christ,” I said, “no, don’t. No.”

“People are very interested in him. Right before the execution he was on television a lot. He did dozens of interviews. He wasn’t sorry for a damn thing. No regrets at all. Calmest-looking guy I ever saw on death row. People nowadays, they’re intrigued by anyone who can keep some sort of cool about them. Your average guy is coming apart, falling to pieces, living in terror. He’s losing his mortgage, he’s got no health or life insurance, he’s neck-deep in credit debt, he’s on unemployment and it’s running out.”

“And you think people are going to admire a spree killer who wound up strapped to a gurney and was put to death?”

“I wouldn’t put it exactly like that,” John said.

“I bet you wouldn’t.” I tensed up and my ribs ground together all wrong. I swallowed down a grunt. “Listen, I watched a couple of your films. I thought they were well made. Chic. Sleek, despite the material. You can always fall back on making more horror movies, if that’s what you want, if that’s what’s hot, if that builds your cachet. You could go work for Sal Domingo’s outfit if it comes to that.”

“How do you know about him, Terry?”

“Perry told me. Just keep any of the ugliness of the biz from my sister, John. Do you understand? You’re not in charge of her, but you are watching over her. I’m trusting you with one of the few people that matter to me in this world.”

“Thank you,” he said. “For trusting me, I mean. And believing in me.”

He was dreadfully naive. Hollywood would grind him up all over again, even with a few connections and his last name. But Dale would learn from his mistakes. She’d watch him in action and understand what not to do. She might wind up turning it around for him.

“When do you think you’ll be ready to go?” I asked.

“There’s nothing keeping me here. I don’t have any work slated. I haven’t dated anyone in six months. I can pack up my cameras and film equipment, my editing machine, all that, clothes. Start making some calls to rental agencies in L.A. I don’t know. A month or two? When does Dale want to go? Doesn’t she still have school?”

“We’ll work out all the details over the next few weeks.”

He smiled at me. It was Collie’s smile. It slid inside me like a shiv. He stuck out his hand and I shook it. He held on for a long while, like we were partners now, our fates entwined. Perhaps they always had been. I felt it too. He was blood of my blood.">“No, you didn’t.”tp

“Let’s have dinner this week,” he said.

“Sure.”

I stood at the top of the stairs and watched him walk down. I had a strange sense of déjà vu, but I didn’t know why. I had no memory of this, but there was still that powerful sense of repeating the past. I listened to his voice recess in the depths of the house, my mother and father answering him. The high flutter of her false but pleasant laughter.

I waited until I heard the front door open and shut. I waited until the television was on and Gramp’s cartoons were doing vicious things to one another with frying pans and shotgun shells.

I moved down the steps and out onto the back porch. I took up post. My gaze strayed to the woods. The oak, maple, and pine flailed in the wind. Leaves whipped around wildly, circling and rising in funnels like dust devils. I heard a car approaching. I slipped around the side of the house and watched Dale’s boyfriend pull his 4×4 halfway up the driveway. They kissed almost modestly.

He chucked her under the chin. She got out and gave a brief wave. He hit reverse and she turned, not bothering to watch him go. He hit the road and gunned it hard. He drew attention to himself. If he was Lick 87 of the Rogues I hoped he kept pulling fake shenanigans and
didn’t step up to the real thing. He’d get busted pretty quick. My sister started for the front door.

“Dale,” I called.

She walked around the house like she was headed for the gas chamber. We moved side by side to the back porch. I sat on the glider. She said, “It’s too cold out here.” I ignored her and waited. She finally sat beside me. Her breath smelled of hot sauce, antacids, cheap booze, and mints. She’d gone out last night to celebrate after the show. Or to diagram her getaway to L.A. Her gaze swiveled around the yard. She checked the back door to make sure our parents weren’t nearby.

She got in close to me and I said, “Listen, were you serious about what you said last night? About moving to the West Coast?”

“Yes. It’s already in the works.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’ve asked some friends of mine who are out there to help me get a place and a day job. Then I start hitting auditions.”

It wasn’t in the works at all. It was smoke and empty talk right now. What friends could she have out in L.A.? People she’d met online? But the heat was there in her face. She was going to make it happen soon, even if she had to hitch out there on her own, thirty-seven cents in her pocket. She’d go on the grift, she’d snatch wallets, she’d get away with it for a while, and then she wouldn’t.

“I’ve got ten grand for you,” I said.

“What?”

“And the names of some dramatic coaches and professional casting agents who might be able to help you in Los Angeles. Also the names of some studio folks who might help fast-track you into walk-ons, cameos, stuff like that.”

She drew away. She was wary as hell. She had every right to be. It sounded like I was grifting her, telling her something that sounded too good to be true. In our family, it was possible.

“How did you do this?” she asked.

“Our">“No, you didn’t.”tp cousin John did it. He’s made a few small movies. Documentaries. Horror flicks. He lived on the West Coast for a while and now he’s moving back. I asked if he’d put you up for a while and show you around the town. You’ll be staying with him.”