Tom Piccirilli - The Last Deep Breath

The film didn’t mean anything to him but he wasn’t getting anywhere this way. “I won’t, I promise. Killing Time is far too important.”

“It is, it truly is!”

“But I need to talk to him. He’s been trying to lure Kendra away from Monty with promises of television work in New York.”

“That bastard will ruin her!”

“I think so too,” Grey agreed. “So I need to see him face to face in order to…dissuade him.”

Grinning, Judy got that look in her eye, the one that said she knew he was capable of great violence and wanted him to stay the course. “I’ll get his address for you.”

She vanished into her small office and Grey stood there wondering where Ellie was right at that second, and if she had any idea at all what he was willing to do to find her.

Judy returned with a Post-it note scribbled with John Raymond’s L.A. address and phone number.

“Nothing for New York?” Grey asked.

“No.” She touched his wrist with a little extra something, rubbed the back of his hand. “I can’t wait to work with you.”

Her wedding ring was a wide band of gold with deep-set diamonds. She backed up toward the wall where he and Kendra had pawed each other. The fire in her eyes filled the rest of her face. A bead of sweat dripped down her cleavage. He smiled and thanked her, thought of her husband, wished the poor fucker well, and walked out.

He called the number but got no answer and no voice mail. He had to stop into three gas stations to get the directions down to Raymond’s office. He was in a shit part of town but Grey liked the liveliness of it. A lot of people out on the street, gangs of punks yelling and fucking around, drunks laughing, homeless pushing carts. Raymond’s office was in the middle of the block bookended by a pawn shop and a liquor store. He imagined how tenuous Ellie’s grasp on the world must’ve been for her to believe Raymond could do anything for her besides put her to work on the street.

The lettering on the front window read STARMAKERS INC. The lights were out, the door was locked, and there was a sign glued to the glass saying the building was for lease. He put his face up to the window and saw that there was still a desk, chair, some photos on the wall, phones, and a computer inside.

Grey called the leasing company’s number and said that he was considering renting the property but he wanted to know more about STARMAKERS INC. They told him that the owner, John Raymond, hadn’t paid his rent in over three months and they were planning on putting his belongings in storage and selling them off at auction to help defer costs. Grey said he couldn’t think of leasing the office until the matter had been completely resolved and maybe he could help facilitate the process if they gave him John Raymond’s contact information.

They said that as a matter of course they couldn’t give it out, but since these were somewhat special circumstances they would. They gave him a New York number and an address in East Village that he realized was about three blocks from Premium Friends. He’d been close but not close enough.

Grey phoned and got no answer, no voice mail. He walked to the street, opened the trunk of the Chevelle, and rummaged through the tools that he’d stolen from Bo. He grabbed the hammer, wrapped it in an old shammy cloth, stepped back up and smashed in the glass door of STARMAKERS INC.

He went through the drawers of the desk looking for anything that might have information on Ellie or Eva Rains. He found a couple of DVD’s, including Teen Ball Busters 2 , and some nude shots of her. On the back of the photos were her measurements, her sexual likes and dislikes, and Monty Stobbs’ address, which had been crossed out and poorly replaced with a stamp of the STARMAKERS INC. logo and phone number.

For a moment the edges of his vision turned black and red and he didn’t know why. It took him a second to realize that he’d been holding his breath. He didn’t know for how long. He took the least offensive photo of Ellie, climbed back into the car, and hurtled toward east Hollywood.

When he got back to the apartment Kendra was sitting naked on the bed, sipping from a champagne glass, a bottle on ice. She was looking through the paper for moving companies and had already started to box up some of her belongings.

She filled another glass and handed it to him. “So, I got us a new place. Judy called me. I hear you’re my co-star.”

He gulped the champagne down. “I’m not a co-star. I’m not doing it.”

“Why not?”

He snorted. “Jesus Christ, you people. I’m not an actor.”

“Who cares about that? You’ve got better instincts than at least half the schleps I’ve worked with over the years. The payday is a big one. There’s already a buzz building. You were right, the writer’s been getting a lot of publicity again. He’s being hailed as a hero. Interviewed on all the major talk shows. They might overturn his brother’s conviction. Killing Time is going to be a big release.”

“None of it means anything to me.”

“None of it means anything to anybody. It’s just what we do.”

“It’s not what I do.”

“Not yet maybe, but why not play along until something better comes around?”

He imagined the next phone call with Pax, telling him about being in a movie, and that Grey was doing better than the guys playing opposite the gorilla.

“We have a new agent, by the way,” she said.

He didn’t ask who. “I’m leaving.”

“When?”

“Now.”

“Where?”

“New York.”

“I’ll go with you. Killing Time starts in six weeks. You can show me the lay of the land before we start. I need to work on my east coast accent.”

“I’m not starting anything. And I need to go alone.”

“Why?”

“I’m going to find John Raymond.”

“You’re still on that?”

He turned and she put her hand on his belly and started rubbing him the way she might try to calm a wired puppy. He wondered why she thought that he would stop looking for Ellie just because this dumb-ass film fell in his lap. Did she sincerely believe that once he had some cash he could set the search for his sister aside? That all he needed was something shiny flashed in front of his nose to make him forget the knife sticking out of Ellie’s side, the blood on her teeth, the tracks, the hardness? These people, didn’t they hold anyone or anything sacred?

The women out in the desert, the dust in the hollows of their cheeks, the careless way they smeared their lipstick on, the way their shoulders bowed beneath the burdens of their loneliness and failed dreams. It wasn’t only L.A. He thought of the savagery in their kisses and the way they pleaded with him to commit murder. Everyone had a scheme. Everyone had a plan. They all wanted a dupe. At least Monty had manned up at the end and taken responsibility.

“What is it?” Kendra said. “What’s this expression on your face?”

“Nothing.”

He drank directly from the bottle and finished about half the champagne. Then he packed his few bags, put them by the door.

“You’ll need money,” she said. She took the dowel off the corner post of the bed and he saw that inside there was a niche deep enough to hold a wad of cash. At least it proved she didn’t trust him enough to keep her money lying around. She pulled it out and counted off five thousand. “Here, you deserve it. You picked the script. You won me the audition. You made it happen. Besides, Monty won’t be getting a cut in prison.”

“I can’t take it,” he said.

“Call it a loan. Until you get your check from the company.”

“I’m not doing the movie.”