Robert Ferrigno - Scavenger hunt

Jimmy stared at the Oscar and thought of Heather Grimm, wondering if this was the seven-pound statue Walsh had used to crush her skull with. He didn't feel sorry for Walsh anymore.

"Rollo can borrow the Oscar for your scavenger hunt," Walsh said to Jimmy. "I just want you to stay and keep me company until he brings it back. I'm offering you a gift, a page-one scoop: a new screenplay I'm working on, my best one yet. The story of a man on top of the world, a man who makes a mistake and falls right through the earth. It's the oldest story there is, but it's got some new angles. Some twists."

"You should be talking to a studio, not me," said Jimmy.

Walsh shook his head. "I'm colder than an Eskimo's pecker. That's why I need you. I want you to write an article about me, about what I'm working on. I even have a title for you: 'The Most Dangerous Screenplay in Hollywood.'"

"Give me a copy, and I'll take it home and read it," said Jimmy.

"No can do," said Walsh. "There's only one copy, and it's not finished yet anyway. Not quite." He rubbed his jaw, and it sounded like sandpaper. His eyes were locked on Jimmy. "It's a good script. So good it may even get me killed." He waited for an answer, then finally stubbed out his cigarette on the white Formica table, the surface glazed with burn marks. "I'm surprised you're not jumping at the opportunity. What's the matter, tough guy? You afraid to be alone with me?"

"I'm not a fifteen-year-old girl. What do I have to be scared about?"

Walsh jerked like he had been slapped, the pain genuine. "You're certain I was guilty?"

"You pled guilty."

Walsh stared at Jimmy with those sad, sleepy eyes. "Maybe I was wrong."

"Cocktail?" Walsh held up two prescription bottles and gave them a shake.

"Pass."

"Your loss." Walsh shook out a couple of Percocets, added a Vicodin, and tossed them into his mouth, washing them down with a swallow of screwtop brandy. He faced Jimmy across the card table and defiantly drew out a long pungent belch. A dented, manual typewriter rested on the card table, an old Underwood, heavy enough to bring down a charging rhino. Stacked beside the typewriter was a manuscript, yellow Post-it Notes sticking out from between the pages. An accordion-style file folder lay open on the floor, next to a wastebasket filled with balled-up paper and empty pint bottles.

They had moved into the rear of the trailer after Rollo drove away with the twins, Walsh pulling aside the paisley-print sheet as though he were ushering Jimmy into Valhalla. While the main room was shabby and strewn with clothes and debris, this back area was neat and clean, furnished with only the card table, two chairs, and the typewriter. One wall was lined with books. Walsh's remaining Oscar looked lonely all by itself on the top shelf. A narrow piece of foam served for a bed, the white cotton sheet taut, the pillow shaped and flattened. The room was probably the exact size and configuration of the cell Walsh had spent the last seven years in.

"You ever been in love?" Walsh held the a bottle of brandy like a scepter. "The real thing, not just slamming the meat around."

Jimmy straddled the other chair, elbows resting on the wooden back. "You said you wanted to tell me about your new screenplay. Let's get to it."

"If you've never been in love, you're never going to understand the screenplay. I'd just be wasting my time." Walsh leaned back in his chair until the two front legs came off the floor, precariously balanced, but he was unconcerned. From the knees down his jeans were a darker blue where he had slipped in the koi pond, but he didn't seem to care about that either. "So have you or haven't you?"

"Yeah," said Jimmy, feeling like he had surrendered something, "I've been in love."

"Lucky us, huh?" Walsh brought the chair back down, picked up the sheaf of paper, and waved it in Jimmy's face. Every page had corrections written on it. "It's called Fall Guy." He tossed it back onto the desk. "That's all I told the studios when I shopped it around a few weeks ago. The title and my track record should have been enough. Selling the sizzle-that was all it should have taken to get an offer. Instead, all I got was thanks but no thanks, fuck you very much."

Jimmy could see Walsh's gold nipple ring tremble with every raspy breath he took.

Walsh whipped his thumb across the bottle. The cap flew off, and he batted it away with the other hand; it was one of those showy, jailhouse bits of business perfected by men with nothing but time. Jimmy had seen cons roll a cigarette with two fingers, seen them dance a quarter across their knuckles, move it back and forth across the bones. It didn't impress him. Walsh took a swallow of no-name brandy. "I once paid a thousand dollars for a bottle of cognac-"

"Did you kill the girl?"

Walsh scratched at the red devil on his shoulder-it was an ugly tattoo, the pitchfork crooked, the horns on its head uneven. "I wish I knew."

Jimmy watched Walsh pop open a prescription bottle. He wanted to believe that Walsh was lying to him, stringing him along, but the man's confusion and frustration were real.

Walsh tossed a couple more Percocets down his throat and chased them with another belt of brandy. "Best news since getting sprung was finding all the new legal dope out there. Just tell the doctor you hurt your back mowing the crabgrass, they write you a scrip."

"Let me read the screenplay. Then you can pass out in peace."

"Tough guy-yeah, I can spot them a mile away." Walsh waved the manuscript. "Well, I'm a certified fucking genius. I'm in the history books. What about you?"

Jimmy glanced at his watch.

"It's a good half-hour drive to Napitano's from here, so relax." Walsh took another pull on the bottle. "That little prick has quite a place: three or four acres it looked like, swimming pools, fountains, tennis courts, statues everywhere." He belched again. "I tried to crash Napitano's party last month. Spent ten minutes arguing with one of the security guards. Punk had never even heard of Firebug. Two fucking Oscars-I might as well be Shelley Winters for all the good they're doing me."

Jimmy laughed, and Walsh laughed too, shaking his head, and Jimmy almost liked him.

"How many times did you see Firebug?" asked Walsh. "Come on, 'fess up."

"Four times."

Walsh grinned, and it wasn't the phony leer he had turned on the twins. This one was honest, almost shy. "It was a good movie, wasn't it?" He banged the bottle down. "All those film school brats flocking to Sundance-I used to feel intimidated. While they were getting hands on with Coppola and Redford, I was cleaning sinks and buffing floors. I worked graveyard as a janitor when I wrote Firebug, did you know that?"

Jimmy nodded.

"That's how I met Harold Fong, the software geek who put up the money for Firebug. He was always pulling all-nighters at DataSurge, and I'd stop by on my breaks, and we'd shoot the shit about movies. It didn't matter that he owned the company and I took out the trash, we both loved the Coen brothers. Him and me used to do bits from The Big Lebowski and Fargo that went on for ten minutes. Harold fucked me on the profit participation for Firebug, but he backed me when no one else would. Now I can't even get past his secretary's secretary." His eyes were red-rimmed. "You ever been in love?"

"You already asked me that."

"Right." Walsh blinked, clutched the screenplay. "You can't read Fall Guy, not yet anyway. I name names, the real names too, nothing changed to protect the innocent-or the guilty." He looked up. "I'll tell you the story, though. We'll make it a pitch meeting, and you can smile and pretend you understand, just like a real studio exec." He pushed his hair back, and there was something about that long sullen face, something that peeked through the abuse and squandered talent, that touched Jimmy. Walsh stood up, the chair falling over behind him.