L.A. Mental (21 page)

Fifty-Three

M
y mother looked every bit like she'd had a sleepless night, with waxy skin and dark, bruiselike hollows under her eyes that she hadn't even tried to disguise. She was still in her robe, sipping herbal tea. She'd made coffee for me; I poured some of that, then got her to stop fussing around and sat her down in the dining room, trying to focus on this new development.

“Erica went out with friends last night,” Audrey said. “She was on the Golden State, going home by herself, and somebody ran her off the road.”

“But she didn't actually get hit, and she wasn't hurt?” I'd looked Erica's car over quickly as I came in, and it seemed intact.

“No. She skidded onto the shoulder, but she was able to stop all right.”

“Did she call the cops? Go to a hospital?”

Audrey shook her head unhappily. “She just came here instead.”

In other words, Erica had been drinking and probably had drugs with her. Her brush with the near disaster of her hot tub video didn't seem to have slowed her down any.

“She still should see a doctor,” I said. “She might have whiplash or an internal injury she doesn't know about.”

“I told her the same thing, but she wouldn't listen. Maybe she will to you. I just checked on her, and she does seem fine; she's even snoring a little.”

“I don't suppose she got the other car's license number?”

“No, she barely saw it. It came up behind her fast, bright lights in her mirror, then swung around and cut her off.”

It made my fingers tighten with the urge to get them around the asshole's neck, but it was one of those things you just had to live with. There were plenty of those people out there pulling that kind of shit, and L.A. had more than its share. Thank God Erica had had the presence of mind—or sheer good luck—to keep her car under control.

“Let her sleep while we talk. Then we'll see how she's feeling,” I said. “Now, what about you?”

Audrey leaned forward with her elbows on the table, pressing her fingertips against her temples and closing her eyes.

“Just these past couple of days, I've been getting these blinding headaches,” she said. “Not really even
headaches
—they're like sudden flashes. They only last a minute or two, but the feeling is so awful. I've never had migraines, and I don't think this is like that, anyway. I'm starting to wonder if it's a tumor. Or—after what happened with Nick, you know—if there's some kind of genetic weakness in the family that's suddenly showing up.”

She opened her eyes again. They widened when she saw my face.

“Tom—what's the matter?” she said, reaching out quickly to clasp my hand. “You look like you're about to fall over.”

Fifty-Four

I
clamped down on myself and convinced her that I was fine, only concerned about her—the last thing she needed was for
me
to melt down—and I stayed there another hour and a half, putting on an acting performance that Lisa would have been proud of.

Eventually, Erica came downstairs, scantily clad as usual in a thin wrapper. She assured me that she'd been wearing her seat belt last night and hadn't banged against the steering wheel or anything like that, and that her Audi had an excellent headrest. Still, I insisted that they both go in for medical checkups ASAP, and Audrey promised to make the appointments Monday. They both seemed steadier when I left, not because I'd actually helped but just from having someone else around.

I
wasn't doing any better. There was no doubt in my mind about what had happened—this was another warning message.

Audrey was getting headaches because somebody had slipped her a dose of those goddamned nanoparticles. They'd had plenty of time and opportunity to do it. She brought in fresh flowers from the garden almost every day, inhaling them deeply as she clipped them; she regularly went out to lunch with her women friends at restaurants where the air was filled with perfume and food aromas; the supplies of the weekly cleaning lady could have been spiked. They might have given Erica a noseful, too—God knew that would have been easy enough—but the threat to her was more direct, a way of driving it home that they could operate on that plane, too.

But with my mother, it meant straight out that Cynthia—or whoever she really was—did still have access to a transmitter that would activate the nanos.

Everyone who had inhaled them was at her mercy.

I could try going to authorities, but I was sure she was on the alert for that and ready to strike at the first sign of it. Drop out of sight, and persuade Audrey, Erica, and Lisa to come with me? Realistically, it would be almost impossible to pull off to begin with, and how long could we hide from Venner?

I even thought seriously about just flat killing her—staking her out with a deer rifle or shooting her point-blank with the unregistered snub-nosed .38 that my old man had half jokingly called his throw-down gun. But even if I could bring myself to do it, even if I got the chance, it was a near guarantee that I'd end up dead or in prison—and no guarantee that Venner or someone else from that shadow world wouldn't retaliate against my family.

I was starting to feel like a character in a Greek tragedy—that I'd brought a curse on my entire line, and we were doomed to be hounded by furies until we were ground out of existence.

I was coming to the end of the long driveway at my mother's house, about to turn onto the street, when my phone rang. The caller ID was Lisa's.

“Hey, baby,” I said, trying to sound perky. “Sorry to bail on you—things seem settled down now.”

“I'm glad to hear that, Tom,” a woman's voice answered.

It wasn't Lisa. It was Cynthia.

My jaw clenched so tight I could hardly get more words out.

“Where's Lisa?” I said.

“She's not available right now. If you and I can come to terms, you'll hear from her later.”

“What do you
want
?” I exploded. “I'll do anything I can. Just leave my family
alone
.”

“You sound so much more reasonable than last time we met,” Cynthia said mockingly. “All right, you do have something I want. If I get it, I'll consider the score even and I'll never trouble you again. Go straight home and wait for another message. Don't even think about doing anything stupid—no stops on the way, no phone calls, no nothing. If you do, I'll know.”

The phone clicked off.

I drove on home, and for the rest of that interminable day, through the afternoon and into the evening, I waited.

Finally, with night settled in and the city again a vast grid of lights, my cell phone made the pinging sound of an incoming text message.

It was from Lisa's phone again.

I'M ON FILM SET CANT EXPLAIN BUT THINGS VERY WEIRD

PLEASE COME

I opened my safe, got out my father's old S&W .38 Terrier, and loaded it with five short thick rounds. Then I headed out the door.

Fifty-Five

T
onight, when I drove my Land Cruiser up onto the ridgetop overlooking the Lodge, the valley floor below was completely unlit. I could still see fairly well—the sky was clear, the moon edging toward half full, and I'd driven the last couple of miles with my headlights off to let my eyes adjust. But there was no hint of where Cynthia was or what to expect.

I'd gone through dozens of scenarios in my mind, and thought long and hard about sneaking in on foot. But in the end, I had to believe that she had surveillance set up to anticipate any move I could make, and that I'd only get somebody hurt—maybe Lisa and definitely me.

There was nothing to do but keep going. I eased the pistol out from under the seat and slipped it into my back pocket, then drove on down the last stretch of road, trying to keep my breathing slow and calm.

I was just starting across the meadow when a little red dot of light appeared on the dashboard in front of me. It moved from there to my chest, shoulder, then out of my field of vision. I could almost feel it crawling up my neck.

Cynthia's voice came from the woods nearby through my open window.

“That's just what you think it is, Tom. Nothing stupid, remember? Cut the engine, leave the keys, and get out.”

I couldn't see her—she seemed to be off in the trees to my left. Her tone was as matter-of-fact as if she were a nurse telling me to make a fist while she probed for a vein to draw blood.

I did what she said. The red dot of the laser sight danced almost playfully around my upper body as I got out and stood up. The pistol felt like a lead brick in my pocket.

“Turn on the headlights and walk in front of them,” she said. “Undress and put your clothes on the hood.”

I did. It was one thing to be at somebody's mercy like that. It was another to be there naked.

“Not bad,” she said, with a mocking edge. “It's a shame we don't get along. Now walk forward ten steps, lie facedown, spread your arms and legs.”

I did that, too. With my face pressed against the cool, weedy earth, I watched her shape emerge from the shadows of the tree line. She was dressed entirely in black leather—boots, pants, and jacket, her motorcycle outfit—and carrying a wicked-looking, high-caliber Parabellum automatic pistol with a sound suppressor on the muzzle. She was also wearing latex surgical gloves. She went through the clothes with her left hand, keeping the gun trained on me with her right, all with practiced ease. It only took her a few seconds to find the .38.

“Really, Tom,” she said, shaking her head in exasperation. “If it wasn't so pathetic, I'd be angry.”

I was finally jarred into speaking. “What did you expect—I'd gift-wrap myself?”

She walked over to me with unhurried, measured steps, and stopped between my outstretched legs. Then she moved her boot toe up against my ass and pressed it down on my testicles—not hard enough to crush them, but plenty hard enough. My lips peeled back from my teeth and my fingers dug into the ground.

“That should give you some idea of what a bullet there would feel like,” she said. “Any more surprises, you'll get one—that's a promise. So tell me now.”

“Nothing,” I said through clenched teeth.

“Nobody knows you're here?”

“No.”

She stepped away. “Get dressed.”

I lurched to my feet and clumsily pulled my clothes on. While I did, Cynthia faded back toward the tree line.

“You know, Tom, I've really liked being in the film business,” she said. “The ordinary world can be so dull and predictable, but in movieland, anything can happen. This is your chance to be a hero and save a damsel in distress. You'll find her at that little bridge over the stream, right where you first met her. Don't keep her waiting.”

Fifty-Six

T
he throbbing in my balls was easing off, but it still hurt to walk and hurt more to walk fast. I did my best, half striding and half trotting through the shadowy woods. The rushing sound of the stream rose as I got close; the spring runoff was down from its earlier peak, but there was still plenty of it and the water was high and swift. The pond above the bridge was high, too, with turbulent swirls and wavelets lapping at the granite boulders that ringed it.

As I broke out of the trees into the clear moonlight, I could see two figures on the bank. One was Lisa, stretched out on her back on a flat rock, with her dark hair spread around her head.

It took me a few seconds to recognize the other one, a man crouched over her.

Dustin Sperry.

What?

My first wild thought was that he'd snapped under all the pressure on him and brought Lisa to this lonely spot to take out his rage on her, rape or even murder her.

“Get the fuck away from her!” I yelled, breaking into a run.

He straightened up and took a couple of steps back, but he didn't speak or otherwise respond, just stood there with his hands at his sides. If anything, he seemed confused, and I started to realize that this had to be staged, part of Cynthia's setup—just like the first time I'd encountered Lisa and Sperry here. Still, whatever was going on was
wrong
, and there was something dangerous about his vacant, troubled face and his stance; even his backsteps seemed to be more repositioning than retreat.

I knelt beside Lisa, keeping him warily in sight. She was dressed in the thin gown she'd worn in her priestess scene. Her eyes were open, but her face and body were as still as the stone she lay on. I put my ear close to her mouth and found the carotid artery in her neck with my fingertips. Her breath and pulse were both okay, slow but steady, and there was no visible blood or other signs of injuries. It looked like she'd been drugged, and while she didn't seem to be slipping away in an overdose—at my touch she responded slightly, lips twitching and eyelids flicking like she was trying to focus—I couldn't be sure.

Or was she faking, with this just another part of the act?

“How long has she been like this?” I called out to Sperry, raising my voice over the sound of the stream.

He still didn't speak, but his eyes were changing as if his blank mind was coming to life—and it wasn't a pretty look.

Abruptly, he convulsed, with a strangled howl bursting from his throat. He clapped his hands against his temples, his body jerking and his feet frantically stamping the ground.

I stared, frozen with shock. It was like seeing Nick again on the Malibu cliff—right before he'd attacked me and damned near thrown me over the edge.

And in that instant, I understood what Cynthia was doing. She had lured or forced Sperry up here, same as me. She was sending signals to enrage him into attacking me. If either of us survived, she would adroitly finish us off. When we were found, it would look like a fight between two men who were known to have a grudge over a woman they both coveted.

Sperry's head swiveled toward me, and the rest of him came right behind it, lunging at me with his fists windmilling ferociously, big sloppy swings that would have dented a car. I scrambled back, rising to my feet and running for the pond. In the water, berserk though he was, I could handle him.

I'd had time for only the briefest glimmer of wonder as to why Cynthia wasn't sending the rage signals to me, too. I should have known better—her timing was perfect. A blinding jolt seared through my skull, like the one that had hit me in Lisa's swimming pool but even worse.

I staggered, knees buckling, and then Sperry slammed into me. His weight threw us both into the numbing cold, roiling pool. With the sickening writhing in my head, my strength and motor control were gone. I could only thrash feebly while he clenched his fists in my shirt, drove me under the surface, and held me there. The pain kept coming in vicious waves, and the need for breath tightened like a vise in my chest. Spots started flickering at the edges of my vision and expanding to fill the field—the final warning sign before I blacked out and my lungs sucked in their last fill—of water.

I had never imagined that I would die by drowning.

Then, in that timeless half-dream state, I felt a distinct inner presence—infinitely distant and yet right there at the core of my being, utterly alien and yet as hauntingly familiar as my mother's voice from birth.

It was the same sense I'd gotten when I'd pulled the lever of Gunnar Kelso's mad scientist slot machine—that a group of august, otherworldly entities was watching all this and passing judgment. As suddenly as it came, it was gone.

And so was the agony in my head. Just like
that
, I was in control of my body again.

I got my feet under me, found the bottom, and burst up through the surface with my head under Sperry's chin like an uppercut that snapped his teeth together and his neck back. My lungs were so desperate for air that it shrieked in my throat as I sucked it in, but I managed to drive a fist up under his nose, my knuckles crushing into it and his upper lip. He roared with pain and let go of me, his hands flying to clasp his face.

Now I had him.

I dove away into deeper water and kept backing up, luring him deeper still as he came after me wild-eyed with fury and with the dark glisten of blood streaming down over his mouth. When his feet lost touch with the bottom and he started paddling clumsily, I dove down and grabbed his ankles to pull him under. He kicked like a son of a bitch, but he was no strong swimmer, and his rage just wore him out faster. A last few seconds of frantic struggle dwindled off into spasmodic twitching.

By now we'd gone most of the way across the pond—and a flicker of chance had appeared in my mind. Cynthia was expecting me to drown. She had to be at least fifty yards away, and the water was dark and turbulent. If I stayed under and Sperry came out alone, she just might let down her guard and assume I was dead.

I came up behind him, keeping my body hidden, and got his face above the surface while he hacked and sputtered his lungs back into working order. He'd pull through okay, but he wasn't going to be in shape to cause more trouble anytime soon. I kept us moving toward the far bank, thrashing around to make it look like there was still a struggle going on. When we got to where we could touch bottom, I started hyperventilating, the longest, deepest lungfuls I could take in.

Then I let him go and dropped to the bottom, shoving off the rocks back toward Lisa. I made it about twenty yards, clawing my way along on my belly like a lizard, before my aching lungs forced me to flip on my back and cautiously raise my face just high enough for a breath and a quick look around.

Sperry was dragging himself up onto the far bank. Lisa was still lying motionless on the rock. I couldn't see Cynthia.

Which meant that she might, after all, have seen me.

I went under again and made it almost to the bank, in water that was only knee deep and a few yards from Lisa. When I came up this time, Cynthia's dark lithe figure was striding across the bridge—toward Sperry and away from me. I got my feet under me, ready to move, but I waited; every step she took increased the distance between us.

As she reached the opposite bank, her hand rose to point at him, but she wasn't holding that big, bulky pistol.

Then he flopped back into the pond, letting out a shriek that carried sharp and clear over the sound of the rushing stream. It was a transmitter that she was aiming at him—shocking him with the same agonizing jolts she'd used on me, driving him mercilessly farther into the deep, swirling water. Exhausted and panicked as he was, racked by blinding pain, he'd sink like a stone.

Much as I disliked him, it sickened me. But there was nothing I could do for him.

With Cynthia focused on murder and the pistol not in her hand, now was the best chance I was going to get. I came up out of the water on the run, scooped up Lisa in my arms, and kept on running in a crouch for the woods.