Robert Ferrigno - Scavenger hunt

"Get in line, asshole," said Jimmy.

Rollo sidled away from Walsh. "Are we in any danger being here with you?"

"Good for you, kid, no sense being a hero." Walsh rubbed his stubble. "I didn't think anybody knew where I lived, so anyone dropping by…" He spotted the Monelli twins slinking toward him from the van. "Then again," he said, raking his long hair back, "I could be persuaded to throw out the welcome mat."

"I'm Tamra."

"Tonya."

The sisters giggled as Walsh kissed their hands, his lips lingering. "I learned how to kiss a beautiful woman's hand when I was at Cannes," he said, eyes glittering. "There was plenty of hands to kiss in the old days. I won the Palm d'Or, but I guess you know that."

Tamra stared at Walsh's dirty fingernails and unwashed jeans, but Tonya didn't seem to notice.

Jimmy listened for the sound of a car engine or the crunch of gravel, wondering who Walsh was expecting, but heard only the distant hum of traffic. From anywhere in Orange County, at any time of day or night, the sound of wheels on pavement was steady.

"We're on a scavenger hunt," said Rollo.

Walsh scratched his belly, checking out the twins. "You girls collecting geniuses?"

"We need an Oscar," said Jimmy.

"Everybody needs an Oscar, tough guy. Me, I got two of them." Walsh smiled at the twins. "The best things always come in pairs."

"We just want to borrow one of them," said Rollo. "We'll bring it back right after the party."

Walsh put his fingers to his nose, closed off one nostril, and blew a spray of blood onto the ground. "Why would I do that?" He cleared the other nostril the same way.

"Why don't we talk about it inside?" Tonya took Walsh's arm and walked him toward the Spanish-style mansion towering above them through the trees. "Rollo said you're working on a new project. Do you have a studio commitment yet, or are you riding bareback?"

"I didn't say anything about a project," protested Rollo.

"He doesn't necessarily need studio participation," Tamra said, turning to Walsh. "You could self-finance the seed money. Even if your house is a tear-down, the lot alone has to be worth at least eight or nine million-"

"Probably twelve with the unobstructed view," said Tonya. "Prices have skyrocketed since you… went away, Garrett, so even if you're carrying a couple of mortgages, you should be able to collateralize." She rolled her eyes upward, while Walsh stared at her. "Three million, easy. You roll that into a performance bond, then leverage the bond into a ten-million-dollar feature budget, coproduce it with a European consortium-"

"Asian market has more liquidity right now," said Tamra, tapping her front teeth with a forefinger. "So you lay off a coproduction deal with one of the Hong Kong outfits, and now you're bumped up to twenty, maybe twenty-five million, and then…"

Tonya squeezed Walsh's arm. "Then you start thinking of casting." "It's not my house," Walsh said.

"The Asians are saturated with blondes," counseled Tamra, "so you should be thinking of female leads with pigmentation."

"Actresses willing to defer their salary in exchange for profit participation," said Tonya.

"It's not my fucking house!" Walsh pointed at the rusting trailer perched on concrete blocks. "That's where I'm camped out. The bastards who own the property are sailing around the world for the next year. They're letting me stay here because they're such patrons of the arts. My two biggest fans, that what they said. Not big enough to let me stay in the house, oh no, they got that locked up tight and secure, with their own electronic gate off the main road, but they just love-"

"What about all the money from Firebug?" Tamra said indignantly. "You couldn't have spent all that. You didn't have time."

"I had plenty of time," said Walsh. "Took about three months, but then I only retained two percent of the Firebug net profits. I had to sell the rest to get the money to finish the movie. I didn't care. When you want something, you do whatever you have to."

The twins looked at Walsh, then the trailer, then flipped out their cell phones in tandem.

Walsh watched them stroll back toward the van, chattering into their phones. "Easy come, easy go, story of my life," he said to Jimmy. "No big deal. I've got free room and board, fresh air, and an ocean view"-he gobbed a wad of spit toward the koi pond-"and all I have to do is take care of the goddamned fish."

"You looked like you were taking care of them when we drove up," said Jimmy.

Walsh grinned at Jimmy. He pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket, tapped one out, and Zippoed it with a practiced flourish, snapping the lighter shut with a distinctive snick.

"I'd really like to borrow one of your Oscars, Mr. Walsh," hurried Rollo.

Walsh watched the twins get back into the van, smoke trickling from his nostrils. "Women used to find me charming."

"Tonya and Tamra-they're high maintenance," said Rollo.

"They're all high maintenance, kid," said Walsh.

"Let's take off, Rollo," said Jimmy. "The philosopher king here is a train wreck."

"Nice to be a winner, isn't it, tough guy?" said Walsh. "Nice to have all the answers and not care who knows it. You never slip, never stumble. Well, enjoy it while it lasts." He peered at Jimmy, and there was no anger in him anymore, just a vast weariness. "The moment you stepped out of the van, shoulders thrown back, cocky smile-I didn't know your name, but I knew that look. Scared me too. There's not much difference between a winner and killer, not as much as you'd think."

"I just need to borrow one of your Oscars for a few hours," said Rollo.

"I can't wait to see what you sound like when it all turns to shit," Walsh said to Jimmy. "And trust me, sooner or later it always turns to shit."

"Are you going to loan us the Oscar or not?" said Jimmy. "It's late, and I'm bored."

"Try living with morons for seven years-you'll find out what boredom is," said Walsh, the cigarette bobbing. "Seven years, and I never once met one of those criminal masterminds you see in the movies." He opened wide the door to the trailer. "Come on in. I could use a little intelligent conversation."

"No, thanks."

Walsh blew a stream of smoke past Jimmy's face. "You think you're better than me?"

"I think a liver fluke is better than you."

Walsh smiled.

"Let's go inside," Rollo said to Jimmy. "Come on, what's it going to hurt?"

The trailer was cramped and cluttered, the sink strewn with empty cans of Dinty Moore beef stew and mandarin oranges, the couch sagging, the open windows streaked with grime. It stank of cigarettes and stale beer. " Mi casa es su casa," Walsh said with a flourish. In the glare of the overhead light, he looked even more dissipated, his eyes bloodshot and watery. He slipped behind a paisley-print sheet strung across the rear of the trailer and walked out a few moments later, pumping the Academy Award over his head.

Eight or nine years ago, Jimmy had watched Walsh make the exact same move, standing in the spotlight at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, already drunk, looking lost and impossibly young as he waved his second Academy Award to the crowd. Jimmy remembered turning up the sound on the television as Walsh launched into a rambling acceptance speech, thanking no one, acknowledging no one but himself. Walsh was no longer the golden boy, but his eyes were still lit by the same arrogance as that night at the Academy Awards so long ago. The same fear too, the awful clarity of knowing that the ground under his feet was already shifting. Jimmy had felt sorry for Walsh then- and even after everything that Walsh had done, he felt sorry for him now.

Walsh hesitated, then handed Rollo the Oscar. "Best director."

"Whoa," said Rollo, cradling it in both hands. "The Holy Fucking Grail."