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  Kelly joined the line of frustrated drivers waiting at the gate to the Warner Brothers lot. She allowed the guard to search her trunk for explosives or terrorist literature, showed her laminated gate pass with its hideous photo and cruised to the general parking area. "D Girls" generally do not merit their own private parking spaces; these being among the most prized perks in Hollywood, indicative of real status. Kelly parked and checked her watch.

  It was only 7:45. Kelly felt pleased. She would probably have the entire office to herself for a couple of hours. Bud generally arrived just in time for lunch.

  Starburst Pictures occupied one three-room bungalow near the west side of the lot, not far from the soundstage where George Clooney was currently shooting a cop movie. Kelly McCammon worked out of a tiny office with a small computer desk and chair, a telephone, stacks of scripts from floor to ceiling and a dinky mini fridge loaded with fruit juice and carrot sticks. She let herself in, drank the last of her latte and sat down to speed-read some bad writing.

  Starburst had only one film in production, and it was rumored to be in financial trouble. In Hollywood the buzz is more important than the fact, so after a rocky start, their lame action picture Die Again was as good as dead—again. Most of the cast and crew were still in Vancouver, shooting a new ending for the third time. Kelly knew a little more than the average assistant around town. Bud Silverman had a loud and obnoxious mouth and couldn't keep a secret for twenty minutes, unless it concerned his finances. Ask him about the balance in his checking account and Bud could probably be skinned alive with a dull putty knife and never say a word.

  The first screenplay was by one of those aging hacks who submitted under various names in hopes of reviving his career. Kelly knew this because the title of the "hot new, high-concept" script was Bertha Glick, Private Eye and read like something the story editors of My Mother, The Car would reject as too clichéd. She banged out the 'coverage' (a summary of plot and content designed to allow senior executives to avoid learning to read) and went to the next work of art.

  The door opened.

  Startled, Kelly froze in place and ducked down behind the pile of manuscripts and screenplays. Damn, it was a sunny morning on a guarded studio lot yet she suddenly felt like a frightened child who thought she saw something scary in the closet.

  Bud Silverman stumbled into the bungalow, carrying a heavily wrapped brown package about the size of a large hatbox. He looked like warmed-over owl crap; complexion pale, eyes spider-webbed with reddish veins. His paunch hung half-out of his unzipped yellow workout suit. He stood there weaving like an inebriated, half-peeled banana. It seemed doubtful her boss had opted to get up early. In fact, knowing Silverman, he had been out all night drinking vodka with Euro-trash and gangsters. True to form, he was already on his overworked cell phone, Bluetooth earpiece in place, making Silverman look like some degenerate, dwarf Vulcan.

  "Damn it! You tell them I'm doing the best I can!" Bud listened intently and wiped cocaine mucous from his nostrils. "Look, I have to go to Cannes, you know that. I don't have a bloody choice." More listening. "I'll have everything together in a day or two, now calm down."

  Kelly could hear someone shouting in a tiny little voice that sounded like an old recording of the Chipmunks.

  "I give you my word Die Again is going to be a hit, one hundred million easy, a box office smash! Yeah, I said my word."

  Whoever it was abruptly severed the connection. The conversation left Bud scowling.

  Silverman stumbled down the hall to his office, which was easily three times the size of Kelly's, and sat down heavily behind his immense but uncluttered desk.

  "Selma! You here yet?"

  Starburst's only other employee, a bored part-time receptionist and—according to Kelly's friend Shakira—"a full-time butt-kissing, fake-tit-waving slut," was a thirty-something brunette named Selma Talbot. Selma, like damned near every other female in her position—or positions as the case may be—had moved to California intending to be an actor.

  Yeah, right.

  "Just me, Bud," Kelly called, as cheerfully as possible. "I came in early to get some reading done."

  "Get in here."

  Kelly rubbed her temples. She already had a headache. She shoved away from her desk, put down the script and dutifully walked down the hall and into the opulent office just as Bud closed his desk drawer. He poured himself a shot of scotch. He still had a sprinkle of white powder on his upper lip.

  "You wanted a title, right?"

  Her pulse quickened a bit. "We talking VP?"

  Bud shrugged. "Yeah. Sure. Why the hell not. VP of Development for Starburst and you don't even have to pull a Lewinsky."

  Kelly cringed a bit but refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing he'd grossed her out. "Great, thanks."

  Silverman shoved the large brown package to the edge of the desk. "But it's on one condition. You call the travel agent. Get on the next plane from Burbank airport to Reno. Then you rent a car and drive."

  "Now? But I have a date tonight."

  "Forget it. You're going to Tahoe."

  Kelly was already confused. "Lake Tahoe?"

  He arched his brow. "You maybe know of some other one?"

  "Sorry."

  "You take this package with you and go straight to Harvey's Casino. Hello? Kelly, are you with me so far? Good. I want you to call the room of a Mr. Juvoncovitch. He will be waiting. You deliver it directly to him. He signs for it. Then you come right back tonight, get your pretty butt in here and drop the receipt in my 'in' box. That's it."

  Say what? "That's it."

  "Is there a damn echo in here?"

  Something is weird here. "Why does it have to be in person, Bud?"

  Silverman belched. Kelly could smell the alcohol from across the room. "Because what's in the package is a top secret copy of the final rewrite of the ending. I had it done off the record, so nobody would get pissed. It is worth a lot of money to me. Like over a hundred and fifty grand, okay? I need to make damned sure it gets there and that I have a receipt for it. This guy is going to get around the agency and hand it to Bruce Willis."

  Bruce Willis? Are you kidding me? Is it set in a rest home? Kelly stepped forward, took the package anyway. "Okay. Consider it done."

  Bud Silverman was already scratching his crotch absently, like some chimp in the zoo. It's as if she no longer existed and he was unaware of being observed. Seething, Kelly turned on a dime and walked out.

  Brian Dylan. Dinner and dancing. This is pure crap. Kelly stayed mad all morning.

  At eleven, Bud Silverman stumbled back out the door to catch his limo to LAX and a flight to France. Kelly fumed for a while and pondered the situation. He thinks I just fell off the pumpkin truck. Something's sleazy. Still, though this was dumb, suspicious and felt all wrong, the giant carrot of a title was finally just enough to motivate her. Kelly pondered. She walked out to the receptionist's desk and smiled brightly.

  "Selma, are you free this afternoon and evening?"

  3

  "Do you still have problems being in crowds?"

  "Sometimes. Now it's mostly because of that smell."

  "The smell of women's perfume?"

  "Yes."

  "Are you still drinking?"

  "Not as much."

  "What does that mean, exactly?"

  "It means not as much."

  "Hmm. I have some incomplete sections in my notes. Do you mind if we take a moment to catch up on a few things?"

  "Would it matter if I did?"

  "I think the therapist is supposed to answer a question with a question, not the client. Where were you born?"

  "Littleton, Colorado."

  "Where is that?"

  "Outside of Denver."

  "Were you an only child?"

  "I had a younger brother."

  "Had, Detective?"

  "He was killed in a military training exercise during the second Gulf War, back in April of 2003. Nobody is really sure what happ
ened. The Army called it a 'friendly fire' incident, which means somebody screwed up."

  "I'm sorry."

  "I'm over it."

  "Are your parents living?"

  "They're both dead, a couple of years apart. Mom went first."

  "Did they stay married?"

  "What does that have to do with anything?" A long, uncomfortable silence. Then: "I'm sorry. Yeah, they stayed married for forty-nine years."

  "You seem tense."

  Joe Case let his body sink further into the armchair. He tried his best to feel at ease. "I'm being evaluated to see if I'm still fit for duty. Doesn't it seem logical to you that I'd be a little tense?"

  "Of course." Dr. Gifford was a cherub of a man, small and round and balding. His perpetually bemused expression was already beginning to wear on Case, who suddenly felt thirsty but said nothing about it.

  "Since you're going to ask me anyway, I think I had a fairly normal childhood. My dad worked for the FBI, so I grew up with a pretty serious respect for the law."

  "Was he an agent?"

  "Nothing that glamorous, more of a clerk. But he took the job seriously."

  "Go on."

  "My mother cooked and kept house. She had her hands full with two sons, but we weren't beaten or abused. We were pretty white bread. One of us went into the Army and the other became a cop."

  "Can you give me some memories of your childhood that stand out, Detective? Family-oriented, I mean. Such as a favorite Christmas, a bad birthday, an experience in school."

  Case eyed him with suspicion. "Nothing comes to mind right away."

  Dr. Gifford changed direction. "We can come back to that." He checked his clipboard. "You said you're no longer drinking all day. That's good. And how have you been sleeping since you went on the medication?"

  "Better," Case lied. He had stopped taking the pills because they numbed his pain too much. He wasn't ready to let go of it.

  "How about those dreams?"

  Case shuddered and looked away before he could stop himself. Gifford, predictably, pounced on the opportunity. "Is it the same as before, coming into the house and watching him shoot your family?"

  "Yes." For some reason this was one thing Case could not seem to lie about. "I'm always just in time to see it, but I can't make myself move fast enough to stop him."

  Dr. Gifford leaned forward. His voice softened to a whisper. "Joe, you were not there. It happened long before you got home. There was nothing you could have done."

  "I know that."

  "No, Gifford said, sadly. "You don't."

  Joe Case carefully examined the carpet at his feet. Finally, in a low voice: "My fifteenth birthday."

  "Excuse me?"

  "From my childhood. The day I turned fifteen sticks out for me." Case raised his eyes, but his gaze seemed out of focus. "There was this kid, his name was Craig Roberts. He was big and mean and wide, a linebacker on the varsity football team. Used to hang out with some of the younger kids, probably so he'd feel like a big shot."

  "He was a bully."

  "Yeah. One of those kids whose father beat him pretty regular, so he grew up pissed at the world, you know? Well, my folks asked me what I wanted to do, and I said I wanted to have a bowling party, just me and my friends. So they did that, they rented a couple of lanes and left us alone." Case fell silent, and several moments passed. Finally, Gifford prompted him.

  "And this… Craig? He was at the party?"

  "No. He crashed it. He and a couple of his friends. They had been drinking, and when they saw us they decided to make trouble." Case thought for a moment and reddened. "I can't believe how difficult this is to talk about."

  Gifford lowered his note pad. "Go on. Please."

  "You have to understand one thing," Case said in a hoarse voice. "I was never in trouble. I was the kind of boy who got okay to good grades and stayed pretty much out of bad situations. Until that party, anyway." He leaned back in the chair, cracked his knuckles. The shrink made a note of it. "A few of the kids were sneaking beers or a hit on a joint out behind the bowling alley, nothing major. I'd had a couple of cans, but I was fine.

  "Craig came storming into the place with his gang behind him. He shoved a couple of my friends around. I heard some yelling and arguing and it threw me off stride. I dropped the bowling ball and everybody laughed. When I turned around, there I was, way out under the lights. There is a weird silence out there on the lane, you know? It's like there's just the humming of the overhead lights and the sounds of the balls hitting and the pins falling. Do you bowl?"

  Caught off guard, Gifford shrugged. "Not very often, no."

  "Anyway, Craig comes down the steps and sees that it's a birthday party. He sees this girl named Andrea I was dating, and she's someone he used to date. Most of my friends are backing away because they smell trouble. I'm standing out there exposed and all alone, and I feel really scared. Terrified, in fact. I hate that feeling."

  "Perfectly natural response," Gifford soothed. "Anyone in that position would have felt frightened."

  "You don't understand."

  "What don't I understand, Detective?"

  Case leaned forward and pinned the psychiatrist with his gaze. "After a few seconds, when the adrenaline got going really strong, I started to like it. This weird calm came over me, and my attention narrowed down to an amazingly clear focus on Craig, his hands and feet and what he was doing. I felt like I had some kind of power to predict things. Do you know what I mean?"

  "No," Gifford swallowed nervously. "Can't say that I do."

  "Look," Case said, urgently, "you've been in a car accident, right? You know how everything slows down suddenly? It's going really fast but your attention span speeds up and you feel like you have all the time in the world to make a decision."

  Gifford still looked blank. Case smiled without warmth or humor. "I guess it sounds pretty out there."

  "No," Gifford said. He squirmed in his chair and gathered himself. "Combat veterans often describe a similar phenomenon. They say that although they were frightened, they also never felt so…alive."

  "That's it, exactly," Case exclaimed. He bit down on his lower lip. "So Craig is coming down the steps and crossing the floor, and I am all alone out in the lane under the lights, and everyone else has kind of melted away. I find myself moving right toward him, and even though this is happening really fast I feel like I have a lot of time.

  "I reach the end of the lane just as he does. He is already bringing up his right fist like he plans to level me. I'm looking right into his eyes, and feeling really at peace. My left hand dips down and I grab one of the bowling balls off the ball-return rack. He's looking right into my eyes, because the eyes usually give away where a man is going to hit you and he is a brawler and a bully, so he knows that. I don't give him any clues, though.

  "I bring the ball up and throw it right into his stomach with everything I've got. So it's like a sixteen pound bowling ball with a lot of muscle behind it. He tries to catch it, but it takes the air out of him and then drops down onto his right foot. He hollers pretty loud and forgets all about me."

  Gifford winked. "Pretty smart way to handle it."

  Case looked down. "It would have been if I had stopped there."

  "Excuse me?"

  "Look, I beat the living crap out of that boy. While he was gimpy and trying to grab his ankle, I started to hit him. I'd broken some bones in his foot, so he was not a threat. I really messed up his face. In a matter of seconds, he was crying and trying to cover himself up. But I kept hitting him until they pulled me away."

  A tense silence followed. Gifford eyed the clock and saw that they were out of time. "You defended yourself, Joe. Perhaps the fear caused you to spiral a bit out of control, but…"

  He doesn't get it; if I had been half that focused and sharp those bastards would have never gotten near my family. My poor little girl. Case, sensing the end of the hour, abruptly got to his feet. His sudden movement and increased physical stature caused
Gifford to cringe. "I see my time is up. What's your verdict?"

  Gifford tried not to appear intimidated. He failed. "Actually, I'm still somewhat concerned about your abuse of alcohol and your low frustration tolerance. I think I need to see you a few more times, Joe."

  Case paused in the doorway. "No, I don't think so," he said. "You've got enough information to force me out as it is one way or another."

  "You seem absolutely convinced that I intend to recommend you for early retirement."

  "Never try to con a cop. You're transparent. Hell, Doc. You don't even understand why I told you that story, do you?"

  "No," Gifford replied, "I'm not sure I do."

  Case winked. "I mentioned it because of what I learned about myself that day."

  "Which was?"

  That I should have been there, but instead he said: "That we're all animals at heart. That was the first time I really beat the crap out of somebody—and the truth is that I enjoyed it." And those bastards deserve it, Doc. We both know that.

  Gifford got to his feet. He looked a bit pale. "Joe, please don't drink any more. Come in for another session or two. Can you make this time next week?"

  "No. I don't think so. In fact, I think maybe you're right. I think it's time I retired. Thanks for listening, Doc."

  Case stepped out into the hallway with one hand still on the ornate doorknob. Muzak was playing softly and the elevator pinged. Dr. Gifford got to his feet. His shoulders were slumped forward.

  "Joe, I have to ask you something. Did you shoot those men because you had to, or because they murdered your family?"

  Case left without answering or closing the door.

  4

  A red Mustang ragtop roared up the desert highway that hot afternoon, a rental car with Vegas plates. The guy behind the wheel had a bland face and thinning, blond hair. He wore one of those cheap suits designed to look expensive. It would be shiny at the elbows in a couple of years. The woman with him had perky saline breasts, pearly-white caps and a thin, aquiline nose and chin that cost her two grand and a quickie in the office of the plastic surgeon. What a pair. As the man would have said, they fit together like a rock star and rehab.