Макс Коллинз - No One Will Hear You

When blackness enveloped him, it would have been a relief if he weren’t also falling, endlessly falling, arms windmilling as he dropped into a bottomless pit...

A man now, he woke up, coughing, choking for breath.

The sweat that had been part of the dream was with him still, as he sat up in his bed — not in the black painted womb of Louis St. James, but his real bedroom, in his own home, where he lived under his real name.

He looked at the clock, cursed the hour, then flopped back down. The perspiration-soaked pillow did not encourage a return to sleep. Maybe that was just as well, since sleep might bring that nightmare back with it. Even in his goddamn dreams , the old man kicked his ass!

As a child, he’d hated his parents. As an adult, he despised them even more — his mother for abandoning them, the old man for every disgusting, obscene damn thing he’d ever done to brother and sister.

Giving up, he clicked on the nightstand lamp and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. Sat there. In only his shorts, he reached for the folded towel he kept at his bedside just for nights like this.

After drying off, he sat for perhaps five minutes more, trying to drive away the images in his head. Some dreams disappeared on waking, others seemed to dissolve away, detail at a time.

This dream lingered.

No, more than lingered — persisted, its terrible images lodged in his brain like inoperable tumors.

Despite the hour, he grabbed his cell. Just before it kicked over to voice mail, his sister (thank God!) answered.

“The nightmare?” she asked, sleepy but forcing herself alert.

“Sorry,” he said.

“You know it’s not real.”

“I know. Feels real.”

“Think pleasant thoughts.”

“That never occurred to me.”

“Sarcasm?”

“Sorry.”

“You should be happy. The FBI! That’s the real prime time.”

“I know.”

“Concentrate on that. We have to be on top of our game.”

“I know.”

“The FBI, they’re not stupid.”

“Neither are we.”

Her voice was almost a purr. “I know, dear. I’m just saying... we’re getting close now, to what we want to achieve.”

“What we need to achieve.”

“Right. We can’t get caught too soon , dear. We need to be careful.”

“We’re always careful.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I would so like to make the FBI look like fools.”

Her voice had a smile in it. “Do you have something in mind?”

“... There’s a young woman I’ve had my eye on.”

“Acting-class candidate?”

“No. But she’s right for the part, anyway.”

“That’s good! This’ll take your mind off all the ancient bullshit.”

“... Tell me we’ll be famous.”

“We already are. But right now all we have is our fifteen minutes. We want to live forever.”

“We’re going to live forever.”

“Live forever, and do things the old man never thought we could!”

Their father’s abuse had spoken volumes about how little he regarded them. Never once had he given them credit for being anything more than receptacles.

“We’ll show the old bastard!” he said. “We’ll show him! We’ll show all of them!”

“Tell me about the new candidate.”

“I’ve been watching her for a few weeks. She’s a teller in a small bank in Newport Beach.”

“Not an actress?”

“No.”

“But will she bite for Louis St. James?”

“Oh yeah.”

They always referred to Louis St. James in the third person. Although Louis was a role he played (like Don Juan), he and his sister referred to St. James as another full-fledged member of the team. Or rather... the cast.

“She’s already met Louis,” he said. “She was attracted to him, obviously.”

“But a bank teller? That’s a lowly profession.”

“She dresses well. Designer clothes. I suspected hidden depths.”

“So you e-mailed her.”

“I did. And found hidden depths, all right. Hidden riches .”

“You are so smart, dear.”

“When Louis suggested that she’d make a better actress than most of the so-called actresses he had to contend with, she got very excited.”

“Typical.”

“Turns out she acted in high school, but never considered acting a practical goal. She’s certainly pretty enough. But she comes from a conservative family, you know — business types.”

“How you’re raised can set you on a path, they say.”

He laughed. “Imagine, finding a woman in Los Angeles who isn’t an actress wannabe.”

“It’s like finding a unicorn.”

“Well, this unicorn has money.”

“How much?”

“Those conservative parents I mentioned? They died and left her a small bundle. Accounts I’ve accessed so far? Add up to just shy of a hundred thousand.”

“Oooooh — that would keep us going for a while.”

“She looks at me and sees a bright future. I look at her and see my own personal ATM.”

“You are a riot! ... When are we going to bring her into the production?”

“I’ll call her in the morning. See if she’d like to have dinner with Louis. You all right with that? Not too soon, is it?”

“Not at all,” she said. “We should step it up. J.C. Harrow’s all in a tizzy about getting preempted by the FBI. I love it!.. What preparations do we need to make?”

“Usual.”

“I’ll get the flowers after lunch.”

“Cool. I’ll prep the room. Get the camera loaded.”

Her voice took on an ethereal quality. “You know — if we can keep this going, to where we want it to? We’ll be Manson famous.”

“Son of Sam famous.”

“Night Stalker famous.”

“Bundy famous.”

“Gacy famous.”

“Dahmer famous.”

“Jack the Ripper famous.”

“All stars, in their own right,” he admitted. “But we’re taking it to the next level. Something our role models never dreamed of.”

“Hollywood famous,” she said.

They bid each other good night.

His pillow was dry now.

He could try to sleep again.

Before he drifted off, he felt confident the nightmare would not return tonight. He knew the old man couldn’t hurt him anymore.

Still, there was the lingering, bittersweet disappointment that came knowing hard living had killed the old man before son and daughter got the chance.

Billy Choi, in T-shirt and jeans, sleepwalked into the conference room with the LAPD Don Juan files under an arm and a mug of coffee in one hand. He flopped into his usual chair.

Eight o’clock a.m. Sunday — usually a day off — but at least cameras had been banished by boss man Harrow, who came in behind Billy followed by Pall, Chase, and Anderson.

Choi felt like he had been on a two-day bender — burning eyes, cotton mouth, and a stomach subsisting on vending machine food.

Chase, in gray sweats, looking awake but barely, squinted at Choi over her own personalized Killer TV mug. “Where’s Jenny? She’s usually first in.”

Anderson answered, way too chipper: “On her way.”

The cornpone chemist was in a striped blue and yellow polo and new jeans, as if he had fallen out of an old Beach Boys video.

The kid said, “Thinks she may be on to some-thin’.”

The boss had on black jeans and a white shirt with sleeves rolled up, looking like an old waiter.

Harrow said, “Till Jenny saves the day, what else has anybody got?”