F. Paul Wilson - Ground Zero

He followed them along Melrose for a few miles, then onto the 101 South ramp. Jack didn’t get much farther than the ramp. Traffic was stopped. Umpteen lanes going nowhere.

Welcome to L.A.

But worse, the motorcycle was unaffected. It kept moving, leaving him behind as it wove between the stagnant lanes. Jack sat and watched helplessly as it disappeared from view.

He banged on the steering wheel a few times—just to make himself feel better—then began planning how to rent a motorcycle for tomorrow night.

11

Jack’s Tracfone rang at 11:10 as he was surfing his movie choices on the pay-per-view channel.

“ Hello? ” said a voice he thought he recognized. “ Is this John Tyleski? ”

“Speaking.”

“ This is Ernie, the manager from the Vintage Theatre. You still up for that Bronson tour? ”

“Sure am.”

“The two-hundred offer still good?”

“Waiting right here in my pocket.”

“Then how does seven o’clock tomorrow morning sound?”

“Kind of early.”

“Sunrise is at six. You won’t miss anything. Told you I had to work. This way I get in just a little late. For two hundred, I can afford to miss an hour or two. I’ll meet you up there. Need directions?”

“Can’t you pick me up?”

“Nah. I’ll be biking it.”

“I’ll pick you up then.”

“No-no,” he said quickly. “That won’t work. It’s easy to get to. I’ll give you directions.”

Jack used the room’s pen and pad to write them down, then hung up.

He stood at the window and watched the thinning pedestrian parade below, then stared at the smog-smudged lights of the downtown buildings in the basin. This situation stank like the air down there looked.

Earlier tonight Goren had looked at him like he was Sergeant Markoff, or maybe Frank Miller. Now he was up for guiding Jack on a tour.

Why the change of heart? Two hundred bucks? Maybe. But Jack had his doubts.

He’d have to be careful.

FRIDAY

1

Despite hitting the rack around midnight, Jack found himself wide awake at 3:30 A.M. This time-zone change wasn’t working for him. His internal clock thought it was 6:30.

He killed time showering and wandering the West Hollywood streets in a fruitless search for caffeine. The Andaz’s coffee shop was closed until seven and the Starbucks down the street didn’t open till six. This was not what he’d expected in a major city. Unlike New York, Los Angeles slept.

Finally he broke down and asked the Andaz’s night man where he could get coffee. The guy pointed him across the street to the Sunset Plaza Hotel where the coffee shop stayed open twenty-four hours.

Maybe he should have stayed there.

The coffee wasn’t the greatest but it was coffee. He killed half an hour reading USA Today cover to cover and was first on line at the Starbucks when it opened its doors as the sun rose. He found things about the chain annoying—like calling their largest serving “venti” instead of just plain old “large”—but they served consistently good coffee. After a large of their “robust” coffee of the day, he felt his serum caffeine concentration reach an acceptable level.

Back at the room he pulled the Glock from under the mattress, chambered a round, and slipped it into his right front pocket.

2

The directions led him back to Hollywood Boulevard and then uphill from there along Canyon Drive through a residential district. The houses abruptly vanished as he passed between two stone columns. A sign announced Griffith Park.

The park road—Jack recognized it from dozens of films—snaked into the hills through acres of mostly scrub brush that looked sere and seared, past a picnic area and a caged kiddie playground. It ended at a small parking lot with an odd sign: CAMP HOLLYWOOD LAND, whatever that meant. His was the only car about. He got out and checked his reflection in the window glass: His T-shirt hung long and loose, leaving no hint of the pistol in his pocket.

He heard an engine roar down the road and soon a motorcycle cruised into the lot. Goren was the only rider this time. Jack watched him as he secured his bike. He wore a tight T, tucked in. It showed off his muscles but also left no place to hide a weapon. Jack saw the square of his wallet in the back pocket of his jeans, but no other bulges where there shouldn’t be. He wore sneakers—no place to hide a weapon there. Jack allowed himself to relax . . . but just a little.

Goren stepped up to him but didn’t offer to shake hands.

“I’ll need to get paid in advance.”

“Sure thing.” Jack pulled out his wallet and extracted a pair of hundreds. “Here you go.”

Goren stuffed them into a pocket and said, “We walk from here.”

Jack gestured to the empty parking lot. “Why so deserted?”

“It’s an unstaffed park, but tourists will be straggling in soon. Too bad a film isn’t in production. Then the joint would be jumping.”

Not too bad for Jack. He didn’t know what it would take to get Goren to open up about what happened down there in the bowels of Ground Zero.

He followed him across a small concrete bridge where they skirted a red-striped car gate and stepped onto an uphill dirt path. Jack noticed fresh tire tracks.

“Somebody’s been driving along here.”

“Looks like it, but you need a permit. I don’t want to get hassled.”

And Jack knew why. But then, he didn’t want to be hassled for pretty much the same reason.

Goren waved ahead along the incline. “Earth vs. the Spider had a few scenes right along here.” He pointed left to a break in the rocks. “Recognize that?”

Jack stared a moment, then saw Kevin McCarthy, in full- blown panic mode, scramble into view and run toward him.

“Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

Goren gave him an appraising look. “You do know your stuff.”

“Why do you sound so surprised?”

He looked puzzled. “Do I?”

A couple of bends in the road, then over a low rise where Goren stopped and gestured.

“We’re here.”

It all looked smaller than he’d expected, but he immediately recognized the dark maw in the rocks he’d seen so many times on reruns.

“The Bat Cave!”

“Except it’s not a cave. Take a look.”

Jack stepped closer and saw daylight on the other side.

“A tunnel.”

“Yep. The Bronson Caves are really a tunnel. It was dug through for Douglas Fairbanks’s Robin Hood. It’s got three exits into the quarry on the other side. Let’s see if you can recognize the one where Ro-Man set up his bubble machine.”

Robot Monster . . . one of the worst, cheapest-looking, most laughable sci-fi films ever made, yet Jack felt a tingle of anticipation as they entered the cave-tunnel. Dark inside, almost black, maybe fifteen feet wide, and no more than a dozen feet high. He felt as if he’d stepped into The Brain from Planet Arous or Attack of the Crab Monsters.

Okay, rein in the geek. That’s not why we’re here.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t soak up some of this film history. He couldn’t help it, he was psyched.

The shaft ran straight through the mini-mountain, maybe a hundred fifty feet from end to end. As they walked, Jack kept Goren on his left and stayed half a pace behind, keeping an eye on him.

About three quarters of the way through, side shafts to the left and right came into view. The openings were too small to walk through upright so he and Goren continued along the main shaft into the quarry beyond. As they stepped out into the light, Goren pointed to the left.