Two silent flashes behind me briefly illuminate the side of the building and when I turn around that’s when I notice a black Mercedes double-parked on Orange Grove, the flashes coming from the open window on the passenger side, and then the window rolls up. A vague realization: someone was taking pictures of me standing in front of Rain and Amanda’s apartment. Shaking, I ignore the car and slowly move away from the apartment and walk down the street to the idling BMW. I get in. I pull away from the curb. I roll up Orange Grove past the Mercedes, which then starts following me as I pull up to Fountain and make a left. So does the black car. I gun the BMW forward but in the rearview mirror the Mercedes keeps up, veering in and out of lanes. I floor the accelerator in order to make the light and swerve onto La Cienega. The Mercedes makes the light too, its tires screeching against the wet asphalt. I stop at the light on Holloway, the high beams of the black car pressing against the BMW, and then take a right on Santa Monica, trying to act casual, as if I’m suddenly unaware of the Mercedes. But it follows me back to the Doheny Plaza and when I valet the BMW I pretend not to see the Mercedes as it cruises around the corner onto Norma Place, slowing as I turn and walk into the lobby, and I only hear it speed away.
In the condo, shaking and wet, holding a glass of vodka with both hands in the darkness of the balcony, storms sweeping over the city, I’m watching the black Mercedes cruise back and forth on Elevado and then I get a text from a blocked number—Hey gringo, you can’t hide—accompanied by a winking smiley face, and that night I dream about the boy, the same dream that Rain had but now the boy, beautiful and shirtless, has moved from the kitchen into the living room and I keep asking him, “Who are you?” and for some reason he’s gesturing at me, the muscles in his arms and chest straining, and as he moves closer I can see the tattoo of a dragon on his forearm and there’s blood in the boy’s hair and when I stumble into the guest bathroom in the middle of the night, scattering a few of Rain’s things that line the sink, I turn on the lights, and in the mirror above the counter, written in something red, are two words: DISAPPEAR HERE.
Another awards party, this one at Spago, and though there’s always the risk of seeing someone you don’t want to I’m beyond caring and since Rain isn’t coming over until tomorrow I find myself standing in the main dining room accidentally stuck in a conversation with Muriel and Kim who don’t ask me why I wasn’t at the party for Alana at Blair’s and after a photographer takes a picture of the three of us they move away, and it’s okay that Trent and Blair are in the courtyard because neither one of them will talk to me since there are too many people at the party tonight. Daniel Carter keeps smiling impatiently at me and though I don’t want Daniel to come over, Meghan Reynolds doesn’t seem to be around and there’s nothing to do but stand still and Daniel and I are both wearing James Perse T-shirts and expensive one-button blazers and he asks about The Listeners and I tell him that I liked his movie, that I was at the premiere in December, and then we’re talking about how big the new Friday the 13th opened and discussing how a particular special effect was accomplished while Daniel keeps craning his neck, raising his eyebrows at someone across the room and smiling.
“Looks like you got some sun there,” Daniel says, gesturing at my reddened face.
“Yeah,” I say. “You know me: I get burned easily.”
“You’ve been in New York, right?” Daniel asks. “How long are you here? I heard you were back at Doheny.”
“I don’t know how long I’m back,” I say. “New York seems … over.”
“And this place is … ?” Daniel asks, waiting for me to complete the sentence.
“Happening.” I shrug. “I’m a different person now.” I put on a fake smile.
“Please don’t tell me you’re thinking of moving back,” he says. “Fuck, if I could get out of here … ”
And then Meghan comes up to us and leans slightly into Daniel and says “Hi, Clay” and if I weren’t drunk I wouldn’t have been able to stand being here and I had forgotten how Meghan looks close-up and it shocks me like it always did and I have to pretend nothing’s wrong. Meghan gazes at me indifferently and my fake smile is a rebuke that lets her know I’m glad she’s come to terms with all the things she’d done to me, and near the end of everything I had begged her to run away from this place and we were sitting at a sushi bar on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City and it was summer and I remember seeing a child actor who had been famous once and was now considered old at thirty-three, sitting at the far end of the sushi bar while Meghan kept hinting that it was over between us. Now, in Spago, I have no idea what Meghan has told Daniel about me even though she has a role in his next movie. She mentions she’d seen me at a screening I wasn’t at, and I suddenly remember pacing outside the ER at Cedars-Sinai apologizing to her on the Fourth of July.
“Hey,” Daniel says, “I’d like to talk to you about an idea.” He mentions a script I wrote called Adrenaline that the studio had put into turnaround.
“Cool,” I say. I’m holding a glass that’s empty except for ice and limes, the remnants of a margarita.
“You’re so thin,” Daniel murmurs before he walks away with Meghan.
Rain has called twice and left a text and I’ve ignored them but when I see Daniel whispering something into Meghan’s ear as they leave Spago I return Rain’s call and she doesn’t pick up.
Dr. Woolf leaves a message on my landline canceling tomorrow’s session and telling me that he can’t see me as a patient anymore but that he’ll refer me to someone else and the next morning I drive to the building on Sawtelle and park on the fourth floor of the garage and wait for his noon session to be over because that’s when he takes his lunch break and I’m listening to a song with the lyric So leave everything you know and carry only what you fear … over and over again and I’m nodding to myself while smoking cigarettes and making a list of all the things I’m not going to ask Rain about and deciding I’ll accept all the false explanations she’s going to give me and how that’s the only plan, and then I’m remembering the person who warned me about how the world has to be a place where no one is interested in your questions and that if you’re alone nothing bad can happen to you.
In the stillness of the garage Dr. Woolf unlocks a silver Porsche. I get out of my car and walk toward him and call out his name. He pretends not to hear me at first and then he’s startled when he turns around. He’s annoyed when he sees who it is, but then his face relaxes almost as if he’d been expecting this.
“Why can’t you see me anymore?” I ask.
“Look, I’m just not able to help you—”
“But why?” I keep nearing him. “I don’t get it.”
“Have you been drinking?” he asks, pulling a cell phone out of his pocket like it’s a warning of some kind.
“No, I haven’t been drinking,” I mutter.
“There’s a very good guy in West Hollywood who I’ll refer you to.”
“I don’t give a shit,” I say. “I don’t want a fucking referral.”
“Clay, calm down—”
“Why the fuck are you dropping me as a patient?”
“Hey, Clay, between us … ” He pauses, makes a pained gesture, and his voice softens. “Denise Tazzarek.” He lets the name hang there in the shadows of the garage. “I’m not able to help you with … that.”
I stand there for a second, wavering. “Wait, who’s Denise Tazzarek?”
“The person you’ve been seeing,” he says. “The one you talked about in the last session.”
“What about her?”
He looks at me as if I shouldn’t be confused.
“The girl you’re talking about is a woman named Denise Tazzarek,” he says, lowering his voice. “I know who she is.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know who this is and I’m not getting involved with her,” he says. “I’ve had two patients involved with her and it’s becoming a conflict of interest.” He pauses. “There’s nothing I can do.”
br /> “And you think this is … the same girl?”
“Yes,” he says. “It’s the same girl. Her real name is Denise Tazzarek,” he says. “This girl you were talking about, Rain Turner? She’s Denise Tazzarek.”
I’m bracing myself again, insanely alert. “What do you know about her that … I don’t know?”
“I told you in our last session: just stay away from her,” he says, moving back to the Porsche. “That’s all you really need to know.”
I move closer to him. “So you know Rip Millar?”
“Clay—” He swings into the driver’s seat.
“And Julian Wells?”
“I have to go—”
“What about Kelly Montrose?”
Dr. Woolf puts the key in the ignition but stops suddenly at the mention of that name. Turning back to me he looks up and says, “Kelly Montrose was a patient of mine.” And then he closes the door and drives away.
The valet at the Doheny Plaza opens the door of the BMW for me and as I get out he says someone’s waiting in the lobby and that’s when I see Julian’s Audi, streaked with mud and rain, parked in front of the building. Walking toward the lobby I almost turn around and get back into the BMW but a wave of anger makes a decision for me. Julian’s wearing Ray-Bans and sitting in a chair casually checking his phone but I can still see the slightly swollen left eye and the split lip, and the faint black and purple bruises on his tan neck and the bandaged wrist. I don’t say anything as I walk past him. I just make a gesture for him to get up and follow me. The doorman behind the desk glances at Julian worriedly and then at me before I say, “It’s okay.” Julian walks with me to the elevator and we don’t say anything as he follows behind me down the hallway on the fifteenth floor and the only sound is when he clears his throat as I unlock the door and we step inside the apartment.
Julian carefully sits down on the sectional and he’s stylishly dressed and seems okay despite what happened to him and he looks like he’s making an attempt at keeping it together but he grimaces slightly when he places his foot on the ottoman and when he takes off the sunglasses with the hand whose wrist is bandaged the extent of the bruising is revealed.
“What happened to you?” I ask.
“Nothing,” he says. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Who did that to you?”
“I don’t know,” Julian says, and then searching for an answer says something that sounds more like a suggestion. “Some Mexican kids.” And then: “I’m not here to talk about that.”
“Why are you here?”
“I know that you know about Rain,” he says. “You didn’t need to leave that message the other night. I think everyone knows what’s going on.”
“Jesus, Julian, what the fuck are you doing?” I ask in a hushed voice.
“It probably seems more complicated to you than it really is.”
“That’s because you made it more complicated.”
He sighs, staring out the sliding glass doors at the afternoon light dimming over the city. “Can I have a glass of water?”
“It isn’t complicated for me.”
“Well, I guess I’m sorry, but it isn’t all about you, Clay.”
“What does that even mean?” I say, standing over him. “I don’t even know what that means.”
“It means that there’s a larger world out there and it’s not all about you.”
“You’re fucking crazy,” I mutter. “You’re all fucking crazy.”
“It is what it is, Clay.”
“Shut up,” I mutter, pacing the floor, lighting a cigarette. “What is this bullshit—it is what it is?”
“I’m not sure why you’re so pissed,” Julian says. “You got what you wanted.”
“And did you get what you wanted?” I gesture at the bruises. “Did Rip do this to you?”
“I told you,” Julian says, “it was these Mexican kids.” And then he asks again for some water.
When I bring Julian a bottle of Fiji, he nods thanks and says after taking a careful sip, “I don’t talk to Rip anymore.”
“Why not?” I ask. “Oh, wait, let me guess.”
Julian shrugs and winces as he leans over and places the small plastic bottle on the ottoman. “It wasn’t so much about me.”
“Well, then what do you think it was about if it wasn’t about you?”
“Rip snapped when Rain was with Kelly—”
“What does snapped mean?” I ask, cutting him off. “So your girlfriend was fucking Rip and then she’s fucking Kelly? And you’re still with her?”
“Clay, it’s more complicated than—”
“Why is Kelly Montrose dead, Julian?” I ask, standing over him, my hand holding the cigarette shaking. “What happened to Kelly? Why is he dead?”
Julian looks at me and realizes something. Still staring at me he debates whether to say anything. “Look, don’t try and connect it all.”
“Why not?”
“This isn’t a script,” Julian says. “It’s not going to add up. Not everything’s going to come together in the third act.”
“What was Rip’s connection to Kelly?”
“At first it was about Kelly investing in a club and they had a … falling-out.”
“Over Rain?”
Julian shrugs. “That was part of it, I guess.”
I try again: “I just want to know what I’m involved with. Just tell me.”
“What you’re involved with?” Julian seems surprised. “You’re not involved in any of it. Maybe it feels like you are but you’re not.”
“Amanda Flew is Rain’s roommate, right?”
“Yeah, she is,” Julian says, confused. “Didn’t you know that?”
“She drives a blue Jeep, right?” I say. “Why has she been following me?”
“She left town. Mandy’s not here anymore,” Julian says. “I don’t know why she was following you.” Pause. “Are you sure it was her?”
“And both of them were with Rip?” I ask. “Both Rain and Amanda had been with Rip?”
He sighs. “When Rain and I took a break Rip started hitting on her … and then, when she met Kelly, well, Rip started hanging out with Mandy,” Julian says. “And that didn’t last, and then he tried to get back with Rain but … that wasn’t going to work.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s … difficult.” He pauses. “Or don’t you know that by now?”
I lean into Julian, my voice lowered. “There are people staking out this apartment, Julian. There are cars on Elevado watching this place at night. There are people breaking in and going through my stuff. I get texts warning me about shit and I don’t even know what shit they’re warning me about but I think they’re all connected to … ” And suddenly I can’t say it: your girlfriend. All I can say is “Don’t lie to me. I know you’re still together.”
Julian slowly offers a small and noncommittal shrug. “Well, if you stop seeing her maybe the rest will stop.” He considers something else. “If you don’t want to see her anymore and you don’t want to help her, then maybe all of that stuff will stop.” He reaches for the water again. “Maybe this wasn’t thought out enough. Maybe there were too many … I don’t know … variables … that I didn’t know about.”
A long silence before I say, “You’re leaving something out.”
“What am I leaving out?” He seems genuinely curious.
“One of the variables.”
“Which one?” He almost seems afraid to ask this.
“I like her.”
Julian sighs and starts to sit up. “Clay—”
“And I don’t really care what other shit is going down.”
“Do you really like her, Clay?” Julian asks sadly. “Or do you like something else?”
“What does that mean, Julian?”
“You’ve been through this before,” he says, carefully choosing his words. “You know what this town is like. What did you expect? You barely know her. She’s an actress.”
“I’m listening to you? You’re running an escort service and I’m listening to you?”
Julian sighs again. “I was just doing favors. It was small time. Come off it. Don’t be so naïve.”
“You’re pimping your girlfriend out and you’re telling me shit like that?”
“Okay, look, I can see where you’re at. I can see where this is all going. I just wanted to say I’m sorry.” He gets up and leans on the back of the sectional for support. “I should have known that you’d react this way. I thought you would have found it, I don’t know, fun … that, y’know, you’d get something out of it and, well, she’d get something out of it and you wouldn’t take it so seriously.”
“That’s why you were so interested in the movie, isn’t it?” I say. “Because you wanted me to give your girlfriend a part?”
“Well, yeah.” Julian pauses. “We thought it might work. But if you’re not going to see her anymore we’ll just call it quits.”
“That might have to be adjusted.”
“What do you mean?”