Timothy Hallinan - Crashed

“Okay?” he asked me.

“It’s a pleasure to watch you work.”

“You said two calls. Who’s next?” He seemed to be enjoying himself.

“This one needs a little preparation,” I said.

We talked for three or four minutes, and he said, “Piece of cake. You got a number?” I gave it to him, and he dialed.

“Ms. Annunziato, please. This is Jake Whelan. Yes, that Jake Whelan.” He looked at me. “Nobody answers the phone himself any more. Call your fucking plumber, you get an assistant.” He sat up as though someone had entered the room. “Ms. Annunziato,” he said. “Jake Whelan here. Yes, fine, and you? Glad to hear it. Listen, here’s why I’m calling. I read the trades this morning like everyone else in town, and I gotta tell you, it didn’t make anybody happy, I had calls all day from people you wouldn’t believe, the whole fucking A-list, it was like RSVPs for the Vanity Fair party, and they all sound exactly alike, what they’re saying. Yeah, yeah, I know you got a business, but a lot of people, they read that story and thought the same thing I did, which is, this isn’t right . So I’m telling you that a few of us got together and we’re not going to let Thistle make your movie.”

He held the phone away from his ear and made a yacking motion with his free hand. He looked over his shoulder at Wally and made a vague gesture that was perfectly clear to Wally, who went to a heavy wooden chest to the left of the fireplace, pulled out a couple of logs big enough to ride over Niagara Falls on, and tossed them onto the blaze. Throughout all of it, I could hear Trey on the other end, going a mile a minute. After he was satisfied that the logs were going to catch, Whelan put the phone back to his ear and just started talking, without even waiting for her to pause. “Yeah, I hear what you’re saying and I know you got a point of view there, but here’s what’s going to happen. She’s going to make another movie, a real movie, not like a star or anything, but it’s gonna be something we can all feel good about, and we’ve decided to buy her contract from you. How does a hundred thousand sound?”

I started to object, but he held up a hand. “What do you mean, it’s low? Okay, okay. I can sweeten it to one-fifty, but that’s it. And I mean, she’s not going to make your movie no matter what, so you might as well take the money and be a good sport. And also, we’re gonna let you look like an angel here, instead of being on the wrong side in a media pissing match. I mean, just how good does this sound? You announce that you’re delighted to learn that the news about Thistle’s participation in your movie has brought her new offers, and as much as you looked forward to working with her, it’s a privilege to know you’ve played a part in helping her get a more suitable role, and you’re releasing her and you wish her all the best and blah blah blah. And we all just keep quiet about the money you’re getting. See, this way you’re like Lady Bountiful instead of being the bitch who’s trying to force America’s sweetheart into doing the dirty on film.”

He winked at me and rubbed his nostrils. “That’s what I thought. Sure, sure you can release it, we don’t want any credit, in fact, try to get it out tonight, it’ll hit bigger, and the trades are still open. You can use my PR guy if you don’t have one, you got a pencil? Here’s his number.” Whelan rattled off a number. “His name is Skip. Yeah, I know, but that’s what he calls himself.” He rubbed his nose again and his eyes flicked longingly in the direction of the door he’d come in through. “We set, then? All clear on your end? Great, great. Love to meet you some time. I’ve thought for years that your family was one of the great American success stories, great movie idea there. Bye.”

He hung up, swiped his nose with the finger again, and said, “Be right back. You want your hundred Gs in cash, right?”

“Right.” And I defy you to come up with a better answer.

Whelan started toward Powder Central, then bent down and picked up the Klee. “Just in case you change your mind,” he said. He gave it one more look on his way out of the room, and over his shoulder he said, “It really is better than the other one.”

The thing about Laurel Canyon is that it isn’t really anywhere, but it’s sort of close to everywhere. It’s not the Valley, it’s not Beverly Hills, it’s not Hollywood or even West Hollywood, but they’re all just around the corner, at least in terms of LA distances. It’s a nice fifteen-minute purr in the Rolls or the Bentley, or an eleven-minute hop in the Porsche, to anywhere the canyon dwellers might be most likely to go.

And it was just a few minutes, even during rush hour, to where I was headed.

My watch made it 6:20. The world was mainly headlights and rain, plus the drama of the occasional fallen branch, supernaturally wet and leafy, in the middle of the road. Long red spectra of brakelights traveled the night, as the car ten or twelve ahead of me slowed and glowed red and passed it on to the one behind, and so on until my own foot hit the brake and left me motionless on a shining street, the car standing still while my mind moved a million miles an hour, mostly in unpleasant directions.

But I learned a long time ago not to linger on the things that might kill me. If you’re not capable of figuring out how to get past all that and move toward solutions, it would probably be better not to break the law for a living, which, despite the appeal of short hours and long pay, more or less guarantees that you’re going to be in constant contact with dangerous people. And once in a while, in the natural order of things, one or more of these people will want to do you harm.

But this was ridiculous. I’d been a career criminal for seventeen years, and I’d never had so many people willing to stand in line to make me dead. And what had I done? One little burglary, and a contract job at that. I’d stolen something from someone who could afford to lose it, who in the larger scheme of things was entirely unharmed; I hadn’t taken the presents from under some poor kids’ Christmas tree or mugged some domestic worker and grabbed her week’s pay. I’d ripped off a couple of pictures from a rich man-a gangster , for Christ’s sake-and it felt like the whole world was pointing guns at me.

It was enough to get me mad. I don’t get mad often, but I get mad thoroughly . I was already absolutely greased about Jimmy’s murder, and now I was getting mad on my own behalf, too.

I finally made it through the light at Mulholland but instead of dropping down the other side of the hill into the Valley I turned left and followed the Drive north along the spine of the hills, the clouds to my right pale and spectral with the light from the Valley floor. Up here, the rain was a little thinner than it had been at Whelan’s chateau, or so it seemed. I wasn’t really paying attention to it. I was sorting things in my mind: first this, then that, what if this, what if that? No matter what order I stacked things, there were still a couple of wild cards. I was barely conscious of having swung left onto Coldwater as I started back down toward the Los Angeles basin.

A few minutes later I made the right I’d been looking for and stopped the car about halfway up the hill. I didn’t want headlights or noise to announce me. Feeling like I was on a fool’s errand, and that I didn’t know anyone better qualified to run one, I hiked on up the hill, sticking to the asphalt to keep my feet from getting any wetter than necessary until I realized I was already soaked to the bone. Where was Jake Whelan’s Mr. Umbrella when I needed him?