"Hey, guys!" We turned and there was Dominic with a big chocolate-chip cookie in his hand. "Don't mind this. I know we're going to eat lunch, but I can't resist these things."
"Where's Blow Dry?"
"Playing a computer game. Come on, I'll introduce you. I brought my T-shirt with me this time, Finky Linky. Will you sign it?"
"No."
"No?" Both Dominic and I looked at him.
"No, because I brought you something better." He handed over a bag he'd been carrying. Inside was a turquoise sweatshirt with a picture of Finky and his whole crew across the front.
"Hey, wow, that's wonderful! Thank you very much! I don't know what to say."
"You already said thank you once, Dom."
"Hey, B.D., there you are. We were just coming for you."
He was plain-looking, nothing more. A little bit over middle size, black hair, very round slightly pockmarked face framed by steel glasses over nothing eyes. He shook hands hard but not a crusher. Suit, white shirt, tie. If I saw him on the street I'd've guessed real estate salesman or insurance. Definitely not a policeman. Definitely not scary.
"What do you like to eat? They have everything here: Chinese, deli, whatever you want."
"I'd love a corned beef sandwich."
"You got it."
Wyatt and Dominic trailed behind us as we walked toward the restaurant.
"Should I call you –"
"Call me B.D., Weber. That's all right."
His voice was calm, uninteresting. I kept wanting to look straight at him but didn't.
"How come you wanted to meet me?"
"Dominic says you're the man I'm looking for."
"Looking for how?"
"I asked him to introduce me to the scariest guy he knew."
Dominic came up from behind. "What he really said was, 'Who's the scariest motherfucker you know?' B.D., I couldn't tell a lie."
Lunch was corned beef and talk about the LA Lakers. The scariest man Dominic knew dabbed at the corners of his mouth with a napkin after every few bites and seemed bored by us.
"B.D., what was the most frightening thing that ever happened to you?"
"I saw some stuff in Vietnam that gave me something to think about. And you work for the police long enough. . . . No, wait a minute! I can tell you exactly what. The most frightening thing that ever happened to me was when I was a little kid. This is going to sound crazy, but I think you'll get what I mean.
"When I was six or seven, my mother took me for the first time to spend the night at my grandma's house over on Wilcox. Nice old woman. Anyway, I was all excited because I'd never slept anywhere but my own bed. This was a big thing, you know? Well, after Mom went away, Grandma and I stayed up late watching The Untouchables and eating these big caramel sundaes she made for us. I was in heaven: watching Untouchables, staying up past nine, ice cream. . . . Finally it was time to hit the sack. I was sleeping in the same bed with her, and about as soon as I got under the covers I was out like a light.
"Now, maybe half an hour later I woke up hearing this giant fucking monster right next to me! You know? I mean, it was right there! Going rrraaawww . . . glllllkkkk . . . rrraaawww. . . . I came out of sleep like a shot, but what could I do, run away or something?"
I started smiling, which turned into chuckling, which I tried to hold back by putting a hand over my mouth. Impossible. The – of them looked at me. Blow Dry smiled.
"You know, huh?"
"I know, and I understand! How old were you?"
"Six. You remember how it was then."
Dominic looked at us. "So what the fuck happened? What's with the monster?"
B.D. looked at me and winked. "The monster was my grandma snoring! That's what the growling was. I'd never heard anyone do that before. Can you imagine what a loud snorer sounds like in the dark to a six-year-old kid?"
"Aw, come on, B.D., get the fuck out of here! You're telling me you were more scared in that bed hearing your grandmother snore than –"
"I was never more scared in my life, Dominic." The way Blow Dry said the sentence was like a guillotine blade coming down. Whatever charm and sweetness the story had had died right there and left us looking at the man who'd told it.
I was with him often after that day but never saw any of the malevolence Dominic attributed to him in story after ghastly story. The only part of his menace I experienced was hearing the feral tone of that one short sentence. It was enough. I'd found our Bloodstone.
8
Sasha couldn't believe I was leaving. Both Wyatt and I had to repeatedly reassure her I'd be back in less than a week. What was I going to do in New York? Some business that had to be taken care of before I could start work on Midnight Kills. Why couldn't it wait till later? Because some of it had to do with filming; I needed to talk to some actors there because we wanted them in the film.
The day before I left, Wyatt and I made a list of the people in the cancer group who would fit what we were going to try and do with our scenes. I say scenes, because after seeing the rushes of the film we knew it needed at least two more to make any sense.
Midnight Kills was by no stretch of the imagination good. The idea was half interesting: Bloodstone comes to life this time as an evangelist who starts convincing crowds that his "philosophy" is not only valid but correct. Halfway through, we discover it isn't really Bloodstone, but. . . .
The plot had more twists and turns than a snake on fire. What Phil had done was substitute surprise and tricks for real story. Although you were constantly being electrified with new shocks or jolts or severed body parts, there wasn't no story. It was that simple. The first thing Wyatt said after we'd sat through the thing was, "It doesn't need a scene, it needs a proctologist!" I agreed, so we spent a hell of a long time working out what needed to be done.
Another problem was what to tell Sasha. We took the easiest and most dishonest way, which was to say we were simply fulfilling Phil's contract for him. Too much time and money had already been invested. Since there was so little left to film, why not do it right ourselves instead of letting some jerk at the studio ruin it?
Phil hadn't liked Sasha to look at his work until it was finished, so luckily she hadn't seen any of M.K. yet. What would she have said if she had? Agreed with our opinion that it would have been best for the film to be destroyed and forgotten?
"Is it any good, Weber?"
"No. But I think we can make it better."
"I'm not surprised. When he liked something he was doing, Phil never worked on anything else. After he wrote 'A Quarter Past You' and showed it to me, I knew everything was going down the tubes: our relationship, the movie, everything. Why would he want to write a story about that, Weber? Wasn't he ashamed, or at least embarrassed?"
Chewing a fingernail, Finky Linky said, "The last time I saw him in New York, he was way beyond being embarrassed. He didn't have both oars in the water, Sasha. Really pretty crazy. That's what Weber and I were saying about the movie – it's so scattered and confusing –"
"A crazy man's film?" She wanted us to say yes, Midnight Kills was a crazy man's film, and the Strayhorn who wrote it and a short story about their sex life and ended up with a gun in his mouth wasn't the same man we'd known and loved.