And yet, if this was the inescapable truth of his life, then why fight it? Why lock himself away in his little apartment, watching game-shows and eating frozen dinners for one, when the only drama he'd ever really been a part of was playing out to its conclusion twenty minutes' drive away? Wasn't that just throwing more time away: waste on waste?
Damn it, he would go. He'd obey the summons of the dream and go back to Coldheart Canyon.
This course determined, he set about preparing himself for an audience with the Lady Katya. He chose something elegant to wear (she liked an elegant man, he'd heard her once say); his linen suit, his best Italian shoes, a silk tie he'd bought in Barcelona, to add just a touch of color to the otherwise subdued ensemble. With his clothes chosen, he showered and shaved and then—having worked up a bit of a sweat shaving—showered again.
It was late afternoon by the time he started to get dressed. It would soon be cocktail hour up in Coldheart Canyon. Tonight, at least, Katya would not have to drink alone.
TWO
About the time Jerry Brahms had been waking up from his dream of Katya and the snails—which is to say, just half an hour before dawn— Tammy and Todd were slipping—"quietly, quietly," she kept saying— into the little hotel where Tammy had been staying. The last few days had provided Tammy with a notable range of unlikely experiences but surely this was up there among the weirdest of them—tip-toeing along the corridor of her two-star hotel with one of the most famous celebrities in the world in tow, telling him to hush whenever his heel squeaked on a board.
"The room's chaos," she warned him as she let him in. "I'm not a very tidy person . . ."
"I don't care what it looks like," Todd said, his voice so drained by exhaustion it had no color left in it whatsoever. "I just want to piss and sleep."
He went directly into the bathroom, and without bothering to close the door, unzipped and urinated like a racehorse, just as though the two of them had been married for years and he didn't give a damn about the niceties. Telling herself she shouldn't be taking a peek, Tammy did so anyway. Where was the harm? He was bigger than Arnie, by a couple of sizes. He shook himself, wetting the seat (just like Arnie), and went to the sink to wash, splashing water on his face in a half-hearted fashion.
"I keep thinking—" he called through to her. "Can you hear me?"
"Yes, I can hear you fine."
"I keep thinking this is all a dream and I'm going to wake up." He turned the water off and came to the door, towel in hand. He patted his wounded face dry, very gently. "But then I think: if this was a dream, when did it begin? When I first saw Katya? Or when I first went up to Coldheart Canyon? Or when I woke up from the operation, and it had all gone wrong?"
He tossed the towel onto the floor of the bathroom; something else Arnie always did. It used to irritate the hell out of Tammy, forever chasing around after her spouse, picking up stuff he'd dropped: towels in the bathroom, socks and skid-marked underwear in the bedroom, food left out of the refrigerator, where the flies could get at it. Why were those habits so hard for men to change? Why couldn't they just pick things up and put them away in their proper place?
Todd was still talking about when his dream had begun. He'd decided it started when Burrows put him under.
"You're not serious?" she told him.
"Absolutely. All this . . ." he made an expansive gesture that took in the room and Tammy ". . . is part of the same hallucination."
"Me, included?"
"Sure."
"Todd, you're being ridiculous," Tammy said. "You're not dreaming this, and neither am I. We're awake. We're here."
"Here, I don't mind," Todd said, looking around the room. "I can take being here. But Tammy, if this room exists, then so does all that shit we saw up at Katya's house. And I'm not ready to believe in that." He bit his nails as he spoke, pacing the floor. "You saw what was in the room?"
"Not really. I mean I saw the man who killed Zeffer—"
"And the ghosts. You saw the ghosts."
"Yes, I saw them. And worse."
"And you believe all that's real?"
"What's the alternative?"
"I've told you. It's all just some hallucination I'm having."
"I think I'd know if I was having an hallucination."
"Have you ever done LSD? Really good LSD? Or magic mushrooms?"
"No."
"See, you do some of that stuff and it's like you never look at the real world the same way again. You can never really trust it. I mean it's all consensual reality anyhow, right?"
"I don't know what the hell that is."
"It's a phrase my dealer uses. Jerome Bunny is his name. He's a real philosopher. It isn't just drugs with him, it's a way of looking at the world. And he used to say we all just agree on what's real, for convenience' sake."
"I still don't get it," Tammy said wearily.
"Well he used to explain it better."
"Anyway, I thought you didn't do drugs. You said in People you were horrified to see what drugs had done to friends of yours."
"Did I name anyone?"
"Robert Downey Jr. was one. A great actor,' you said, 'killing himself for the highs,' you said."
"Well I don't fry my brains every night like Robert did. I know my limits. A little pot. A few tabs of acid—" He stopped, looking a little irritated. "Anyway, I don't have to justify myself to you."
"I didn't say you did."
"Quoting me—"
"Well that's what you said."
"Well it's bullshit. It's his life. He can do what the hell he likes with it. Where did all this start anyhow?"
"You saying—"
"Oh yeah, we're having this dream together, because that way Cold-heart Canyon doesn't exist. Can't exist. It's all something invented. I mean, how can any of that be real?"
"I don't know," said Tammy flatly. "But whatever you say about dreams or consenting reality or whatever it was: that place is real, Todd. It's up there in the hills right now. And she's there too. And she's planning her next move."
"You sound very sure." He was studying his reflection in the mirror of the dresser as he talked to her.
"I am sure. She's not going to let go of you. She'll find a way to get you back."
"Look at me," he said.
"I think you look fine."
"I'm a mess. Burrows fucked it all up." His hands went up to his face. "It's gotta be a dream . . ." he said, returning to his old theme. "I can't look like this in the real world."
"I do," Tammy said, considering her own unhappy reflection. "I look like this." She pinched herself. "I'm real," she said.
"Yeah?" he said softly.
"I know who I am. I know how I got here, where I came from, where my husband works."
"Your husband?"
"Yes, my husband. Why? Are you surprised a woman with my dress size has got a husband? Well, I have. His name's Arnie, and he works at Sacramento Airport. And you don't know anything about him, do you?"
"No."
"So you can't have dreamed him, can you?"
"No."
"See? That's my life. My problem."
"Why's it a problem?"
"Because he drinks too much and he doesn't love me and he's having an affair with this woman who works at the FedEx office."
"No shit. Is he the violent type?"
"He would be if I let him."
"But you don't."
"I fractured one of his ribs the last time he tried something stupid like that. He was drunk. But that's no excuse."
"So why do you stay with him?"
"You really want to know?"
"Yeah."
"Sound like you mean it."
"I mean it."
"If I tell you, you've got to promise me one thing."
"What's that?"
"Promise first."
"Shit. I promise. Scout's honor. Why'd you stay with him?"
"Because being alone is the worst. Especially for a woman. I walked out on him two an
d a half years ago, when I found out about one of his women, but after a month I had to go back to him. Being on my own made me crazy. I made him tell me he was sorry for humiliating me and that he'd never do it again, but I knew that wasn't true. Men can't help being pigs. It's the way God made them."
"And I suppose women are—"
"Bitches, most of us. Me included. But sometimes you need to be a bitch so you can get through the day."
"And Katya?"
"I wondered how long it would take you to get round to her," Tammy said. "Well I'll tell you how much of a bitch she was. You know the man she threw into the room?" Todd nodded. "His name was Zeffer. He was the man who made her into a movie star. That's the kind of woman she was."
"There was another side to her, believe me."
"Don't tell me: she loves dogs."
"Wait . . ." he said wearily, waving away her cynicism. "I'm trying to explain something here."
"I don't want to hear about her kinder, gentler side."
"Why not?"
"Because she's a bad woman, Todd. They named Coldheart Canyon after her, for God's sake. Did you know that? Anyway, we're neither of us going back up there. Agreed?"
Todd didn't reply. He simply stared at the faded photograph of the Hollywood sign that hung above the bed. "Didn't somebody throw themselves off that?" he said finally.
"Yeah. Her name was Peg Entwistle. She was a failed actress. Did you hear what I said?"
"About what?"
"Neither of us is going back up to see Katya again, agreed? You're not going to try and sneak back up there the moment my back's turned?"
"Why? Would it matter so much if I did?" he said. His belief that all this was a dream seemed to have lost credibility in the last few minutes. "You're never going to see me again after this anyway."
It was true, of course: this was the first and last time she'd sit in a motel room and have a conversation with Todd Pickett. But it still stung her to hear it said. Hurt, she stumbled after a response. "It only matters because I want the best for you."
"Then move over," he said, coming to the bed, "and let me lie down and sleep. Because that's what I want right now."
She got up off the bed.
"You're not going to sleep?" he said.
"There isn't room for both of us."
"Sure there is. Lie down and get some rest. We'll talk about this when we've had some sleep."
He slipped off his shoes and lay down, placing one of the paper-thin pillows beside the other so they'd both have somewhere to lay their heads.
"Go on," he said. "Lie down. I won't bite."
"You do know how weird all this is for me, don't you?"
"Which part: the girl, the house, the Devil's wife—"
"No. You and me, together in one bed."
"Don't worry, I'm not going to be making sexual advances—"
"I know that—"
"—I'm just suggesting we get some sleep."
"Yeah. Well. Okay. But it's still weird. You know, you used to be somebody I idolized."
"With a heavy emphasis on the used to be," Todd said, opening one eye and looking at her.
"Don't be so sensitive."
"No. I get the message. It was the same when I met Paul Newman, in the flesh." He closed his eye again. "I always used to think he was the coolest of all the cool guys. He had those ice-blue eyes, and that easy way of . . ." His words were getting slower, dreamier. ". . . walking into a room . . . and I used to think . . . when I'm famous . . ." The words trailed away.
"Todd?"
He opened his eyes a fraction and looked at her between the lashes. "What was I saying?"
"Never mind," she said to him, sitting on the bed. "Go to sleep."
"No, tell me. What was I saying?"
"How much you wanted to be like Paul Newman."
"Oh yeah. I just used to practice my Newman act for hours on end. The way everything he did was so relaxed. Sometimes he looked so relaxed you couldn't believe he was acting at all. It looked so... easy . . ."
While he talked Tammy took off her own shoes (her feet were filthy, and ached, but she didn't have the strength to get into a shower), and then lay down beside Todd. He didn't even seem to realize she was there beside him. His monologue continued, though it became less coherent, as sleep steadily made his tongue more sluggish.
"When I met him .. . finally met him ... he was.. . so . .. small . . ."
His conclusion reached, he began to snore gently.
Tammy sat up on her elbows and looked at him, lying there, wondering how she would have felt if she'd been told a few days ago that she'd be sharing a bed with Todd Pickett. It would have made her heart jump a beat to even contemplate the possibility. And yet here she was, lying down beside him, and she felt nothing; nothing except a vague irritation that she was not going to get a fair share of the bed with him sprawled out over it. Oh well, she had no choice. She could either sleep on the bed with Mister Heart-throb, or take the floor.
She closed her eyes.
She was exhausted: sleep came in a matter of moments. There were no dreams.
THREE
While the two mismatched adventurers slept in the subterranean murk of Room 131 in the Wilshire Plaza Hotel, a sleep too deep to be called comfortable; too close to death, in fact—the city of Los Angeles got up and went about its daily business. There was profit to be made. There were movies being shot all over the city. Joyless little pornos being made in ratty motels, witless spectacles with budgets that could have supported small nations made on the soundstages of Culver City and Burbank; penniless independent films about the lives of hustlers, whores and penniless filmmakers shot wherever a room could be found and the actors assembled. Some would go on to glory; even the pornos had their nights of prize-giving now, when the lucky lady voted Best Cock-Sucker was called to the podium to humbly thank her agent, her mother, and Jesus Christ.
But the fictions, whether sex or science-fiction, were not the only dramas that would be played out today. This was a city that made its profit by selling dreams, not least of itself, and so every day young hopefuls arrived by bus and by plane to try their luck. And every day a few of those dreamers, having been here a few months (sometimes a few years), realized that their place in the food chain of fame was lower than a piece of week-old sushi. It was not going to happen for them: they weren't going to be the next Meryl Streep, the next Todd Pickett, the next Jim Carrey. They'd have to wait another lifetime for their slice of fame; or the lifetime after that, or the lifetime after that. And for some, it wasn't news they could bear to take home with them. Better to buy a gun (as Ryan Tyler, real name Norman Miles, did that morning) and go back to your one-room apartment and blow out your brains. He'd had two lines in one of the Lethal Weapon movies, which he'd told everyone in Stockholm, Ohio, was the beginning of a great career. But the lines had been cut, and for some reason he'd never caught a director's eye ever again. Not once in six years, since he'd had those two lines, had he been called back for an audition. The bullet was kinder than the silent phone. His death didn't make the news.
The suicide of one Rod McCloud did, but only because he'd thrown himself off a bridge onto the 405 and brought the morning traffic in both directions to a halt for an hour. McCloud had actually won an Oscar; he'd been the co-recipient (with four other producers) of the coveted little icon fourteen years earlier. There hadn't been time for him to reach the microphone and thank his agent and Jesus Christ; the orchestra had started playing the exit music before the man in front of him had finished giving his thanks; then it was too late.
At noon, another suicide was discovered; that of a man who, unlike McCloud—who had been sixty-one—was still at the beginning of his life. Justin Thaw, who two years ago had been named by Vanity Fair the Most Powerful Agent in LA Under Twenty-five (he was twenty-two at the time), and had been groomed by the greatest of the city's agent-deities as the inheritor of his chair, made a noose and hanged himself in his brother's garage, leavi
ng a suicide letter that was arranged as a series of bullet-points (in the style his ex-boss had taught him), for maximum clarity. He could no longer fight his addiction, he said; he was too tired of feeling as though he was a failure, just because he was hooked on heroin. He was sorry for all the heartless things he'd said and done to those he loved; it had been the drug doing, the drug saying: but it was he who was sorry, and he who was glad to be leaving today, because life wasn't worth the effort anymore. He was wearing the ten-thousand-dollar suit he'd had made for himself in Milan, the shoes he'd purchased in Rome, and (so as not to make as much of a mess of his death as he had of his life) a pair of adult diapers.
The news of Justin's death would spread quickly, and a few executives' doors would be closed for a while, giving the men behind them a moment to remember the occasions they'd got high with Justin, and wonder whether it wasn't time they asked for help from Narcotics Anonymous. Then the phones from their powerful contemporaries started to ring again, and the pressure of the day meant that meditation had to be put off for a while; they took a snort or two of coke to put Justin out of their minds, and got on with the deal-making. They could think about him again at the funeral.
Speaking of which: the ashes of one Jennifer Scarscella were on a Chicago-bound plane that afternoon, headed for interment in the city of her birth. Jennifer had died nine months ago, but her body had only recently been found and identified in the LA Morgue. She had left home seven years before, without telling her parents where she was headed, though it wouldn't have been hard for the Scarscellas to figure out that their daughter had left to try her luck in Tinseltown: all she'd ever wanted to do was be a movie star. She had been murdered by her boyfriend, because she'd refused, he said, to take a role in an X-rated movie. He was now in jail, and Jennifer was going home, having kept her ambitions high, and died for doing so.