Westlake, Donald E - Novel 50 (21 page)

 
          
O’Connor
watches Jack Pine's dreamy eyes, dreamy smile. Will the man ever get down to
it, get to the point? But the closer he comes to present time, of course, the
harder it becomes to keep him moving. "There's no place like home,"
O'Connor says, repeating the actor's last words in an effort to get him in
motion again.

 
          
"Ohhhh, yes."
Those dreamy eyes find O'Connor's
eyes and gaze into them. "I'm safe here," says that dreamy voice.

 
          
"The
world's left outside."

 
          
"Yeeessss."
The eyes are filling with color,
becoming less dreamy. "It's very nice here, very restful," and the
voice gets stronger, the words faster, "after a hard day at the
studio." The voice is going up in pitch, the eyes are pinholes in a
decaying face,
the
words are coming faster and faster:
"I can warm my flank, create a cause by the crater of the Susanna
sometimewhenthesoonsunsome- soonsunsooooooOOOOOO—!!"

 
          
"Oh, my God!"
O'Connor cries, lost in the actor's
keening.
"The pills!"

 
          
"YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!”

           
Fumbling in haste, O'Connor blunders
out of his canvas chair and onto his knees beside the dead-faced, pin-eyed
screaming actor. His nervous fingers chase the three red capsules around the
silver tray like an overeager puppy snuffling after ants on the sidewalk. He
manages to capture all three, fold them into his palm.

 
          
“YYYYYYYYYYY—'"

           
O'Connor clutches the back of Pine's
neck with one hand, shoves the capsules with his other hand down into that
black and red straining screaming maw, reaches for the waterglass.

 
          
“Y! Y! Y! Y! Y!”

           
O'Connor pours water into that
mouth; some bubbles out again, over the actor's chin and down onto his pale
blue terry-cloth robe, but some stays, oozing past the screams and down the
gullet.

 
          
“
y-ng
!
y-ng
!
y-ng
!
Y-ng!
ngngngngngngngngng-
ngng . . ."

 
          
O'Connor,
still kneeling,
still holding
the waterglass— now half
empty—sits back on his heels and watches. The noises from the actor's mouth
lessen, become arrhythmic, more like burps or hiccups or dry leaves. O’Connor,
his brow furrowed with guilt and fellow-feeling, says, “Mr. Pine?
Jack?''

 
          
The
actor grows silent. Then, all at once, he shudders all over his body, as though
reacting to some strong explosion deep within. After an instant of rigidity, he
begins to tremble, as though freezing
cold,
and a look
of terror crosses his face. Folding his shoulders in defensively toward his
ears, he brings his knees up to his chin and wraps his arms around his legs.
The look of terror increases, becomes a rigid stare into the deepest pit, and
in a small, cracking, weak, tremulous voice the actor says,
“That—That—That—That can—That can . . .
hurt”

 
          
“I'm
sorry,'' O'Connor tells him, with utter sincerity, and risks touching the actor
on the arm. “I'm really sorry. I forgot the time.''

 
          
Pine
still stares at nothing, his head twitching from time to time. He seems to be
talking mostly to himself. “That can—" he says, and trembles, and says,
“hurt. Oh, boy. That can hurt. Oh.
Hurt
."

 
          
“Sorry.
Really."
O'Connor gets up off his knees and
resumes his old position in the chair, reclaiming his pen and notebook from
where he'd dropped them on the slate in that moment of panic. His expression
still worried, he watches the actor's slow recovery.

 
          
Pine,
crouched over his upraised knees, rubs his arms obsessively. His breathing,
which had been quick and strained, grows more level, more even. He turns his
head slowly, looks at O'Connor as though he can actually see him, then looks
away again,
at
whatever it is he sees at the farthest
range of infinity. “I don't like that part," he says, in a half whisper.
“Not that part."

 
          
“I
am sorry," O'Connor says. What else is there to say?

 
          
The
actor lifts his head, looking out and up, over the trees of his compound. The
sky fills his eyes. He says, “I saw a girl . . ."

           
There’s a party going on, in a house
up in Big Sur. Big, rough-hewn log house cantilevered out over the cliff.
Big, comfortable, big-roomed house full of Indian rugs and Mexican
pottery and all
kinds
of dope.
Big counterculture house with state-of-the-art stereo inside
Shaker reproduction cabinets.
Would you believe two platinum albums were
recorded
in this house? Of course you
would.

 
          
Buddy
had business up here, a little shmooze here and there. Somebody has to take
care of the business end, make sure the IRS doesn't get
everything.
And he could take care of what had to be taken care of,
and still kick back and party along the way. So he brought Jack. Jack doesn't
get out of the compound much, doesn't do much of anything much, is not at
all
keeping himself in trim. Not at
all

 
          
Jack
fell asleep. Early in the party, sun barely overhead, people grooving in the
big room cantilevered out over the cliff, with the wall of plate-glass windows
showing the whole fucking
ocean,
man,
you can almost fucking see

 
          
Australia
out there.
And pine trees down both sides, furring the
face of the cliff.

 
          
And
Jack fell asleep, On a backless couch down at the end of the room, the foot of
the couch against the big window, and that's where Jack fell asleep, his back
against the glass, head against the glass, mouth hanging open, eyes closed,
hands limp, nothing behind his poor befuddled head but the glass and the air
and the sea and Australia. Just out of sight over there, beyond the glistening
horizon.

 
          
The
loud party noises—people yelling their conversations over the stereo sound of a
not-yet-released new soft-rock album—did not wake Jack but seemed to soothe
him, comfort him, convince him he was not alone, he was safe to slumber. But
the first scream troubled his sleep, made him frown, made his mouth half close
in protest.

 
          
The
second scream dragged his eyes open. A blur of movement met him, a blur of sound
blanketed his ears, and then voices became distinct, full of panic.

 
          
"She's
freaked!"

 
          
"It's
a bad trip!"

 
          
"Hold
her, for Christ's sake!"

 
          
And
the girl's voice, screaming,
“Get away!
Get away!”

 
          
Jack
turned his wondering head and, along the line of windows, past the milling mob,
he could see her, a skinny naked girl of fifteen or sixteen, ribs standing out
below her breasts, face distorted, keeping a circle clear around herself by
swinging a record jacket back and forth in wide swaths. She screamed and
screamed, foam on her lips, and the people around her ducked and dodged, trying
to reach her, trying to calm her, trying to get her under somebody's control.

 
          
Jack
watched, and then somebody made a lunge for the girl, knocking the record
jacket out of her hand. Her scream got louder,
more shrill
,
and she spun about, eluding all those groping arms, and ran straight ahead,
full speed through the window.

 
          
Jack
turned his head, his cheek against the cool glass, and watched her go, in a
long arc, out away from the building, high over the sea and the cliff, the
shattered glass flying with her, gleaming like diamonds in the sun, the girl a
skinny, wild-haired white spider flailing through the air, her scream filling
the sky and rolling like Juggernaut through Jack's brain.

 
          
She
fell so slowly, like a death in an arty Japanese movie, arcing out and down and
out and down, the hard jewels of glass tumbling with her, and Jack watched her
go, and saw the great bruised sea rise up for her, and he died. He breathed, he
heard the sounds in the room, he saw the sunlight gleaming, he felt the glass
warm against his cheek, but he died. The sea sucked the girl in, and he was
dead.

 
          
Through
the pandemonium of the room, Buddy shoved his way to Jack's side, grabbing him
roughly by the elbow, saying urgently in his ear, “Dad! Get your shit together,
dammit! We gotta get outa here!"

 
          
“Wendy,"
Jack whispered. His terror was so severe he couldn't move. He whispered, “Did
you see her? Wendy?"

 
          
Buddy
grabbed Jack's jaw in a tight and painful grip, turning Jack's face up toward
his own hot angry glare. “Listen to me, you fucking asshole," Buddy said,
low and fast, below the chaotic noises that had now overtaken the room behind
him, but clear and ringing in Jack's ears. “I still need you," Buddy
rasped, giving Jack's jaw a hard shake. “You do
not
freak out on me. You do
not
get found in this house where some underage cunt offed
herself
.
You get up on your feet and you walk with me out of this house. You do it
now."

 
          
“Buddy,
Buddy," Jack said, brimming with gratitude, his eyes filling with tears,
“where would I be without my Buddy? You're my oldest friend in
all the
world, do you know that?"

 
          
“Up,
shit-for-brains," Buddy ordered him, and released Jack's jaw to grab his
hand instead and twist his thumb painfully backward. “On your fucking
feet”

 
          
“You’ll
save me, Buddy," Jack said,
beginning to cry, struggling to rise from the couch, making it at last to the vertical,
tottering there. “You'll save me, Buddy Buddy. You always save me, you always
do.”

 
          
“March,”
Buddy told him, twisting his thumb.

 
          
“It
was
Wendy,” Jack whispered, shivering
with dread, and the two old friends made their way out of that room and away
from that party.

           
I'm so cold. I hurt all over. My
thumb hurts, too, but that's something else. My jaw hurts, too, but that's
something else. It's just that I'm so cold. Since I died, I'm cold a lot.

 
          
“What?"
I say. Michael O'Connor has said something, but I was too cold to hear him.

 
          
So
he repeats it. “Why did you call that girl Wendy?"

 
          
Wendy?
What have I been saying? Something must have gone wrong, my balance isn't
right, I'm not paying attention.
This
cannot be.
I must be on guard, always on guard, and especially on guard
with the media. Oh, my, yes. “Wendy?" I say, casually, lifting my head,
thinking back. “That was the poor girl's name, I suppose."

 
          
“It
was your
first
girl's name,
too," he says.

 
          
Oh,
damn you,
Michael,
you do have a memory between those
ears, don't you? I smile at him. “Lots of Wendys in this old world," I
say. “Anyway, it got covered up that we were there. Me and two other guys with
. . . names."

 
          
“I
don't remember anything about it," O'Connor says.

 
          
“You
wouldn't," I assure him. “When a property is as valuable as I am, a lot of
very serious professional people see to it that nothing happens to lower that
value. I am not a person anymore, you know, Michael, no, sir, not me. I am a
property.
A valuable
property.
A whole lot of people would be shit outa luck if anything
happened to this property. So nothing does."

 
          
"Well,
some things do," O'Connor suggests. "Some things did, anyway; you
told me about them."

 
          
"But not anymore."
I look around, at my domain.
"I stay here now, mostly, since that time up at Big
Sur.
I make one picture a year now, that's all.
I don't need to do any more; I don't need the money. I just have to do the one
to keep myself current, part of the
scene.
Grandstanders, now, that's what I do. I don't, you know,
act
anymore. I could if I wanted, I still could, but it's hard, it's
too hard, and who needs it? They don't pay their money to see me
become
somebody, not anymore. They pay
to see me be
me.
An idealized
them.
I do clenched-jawline stuff a lot.
I pick properties with
speeches
in
them." I glower at Michael O'Connor: "You don't love me. You
never
loved me. You never loved
anybody.
You don't know
how
to love."

 
          
This
speech seems to make O'Connor uncomfortable. He says, "But what about the
talent?
The gift?"

 
          
"Among my souvenirs."

 
          
"Well
. . . what do you do with the rest of your time?" he asks.
"The nine or ten months a year when you're not making a
movie."

 
          
"I
stay home," I say, smiling at the thought.
"Right
here.
Anything I need, they bring me. I'm safe here." I smile at
Michael, from my safety.