And so he took a shower. A nurse practitioner dressed his wound and gave him antibiotics. He felt better. When she was gone, he looked out at his reflection, mirrored against the lighted pool. Trying to nail down what he would say to Gordon, but unable to hold onto his thoughts.
A light knock.
“Come in.”
It was Shower Cap.
Max thought: I’m hallucinating again.
Shower Cap put his finger to his lips and crept into the room, his movements exaggerated and low, like Groucho Marx. It helped that he wore a doctor’s white smock and a doctor’s head mirror instead of the shower cap.
Am I hallucinating again?
Max closed the door behind them.
Shower Cap drew the curtains closed.
“I’m glad you’re back,” he said.
“It’s like I never left.” Max was beginning to remember now. How could he have forgotten Shower Cap? Only Shower Cap’s real name was Darren. Darren Fitch-Wender.
Shower Cap was the mascot here. Max knew that Gordon’s silent partner in the DO was Darren’s father, Thaddeus B. Fitch-Wender.
Yes, that Thaddeus B. Fitch-Wender.
How could he have forgotten?
Max had holes in his memory, but how could he have forgotten Darren?
Darren was in his midforties and had lived here for at least fifteen years—since shortly after the place was built. Darren was a drummer in a semifamous heavy metal band twenty years ago. He’d done a lot of drugs, and eventually they’d taken their toll. Max had heard the story of Darren’s life from Serena, his masseuse, after Darren had popped in one day and sat cross-legged on the table opposite. He’d worn only a sari and his shower cap.
Max stared at Darren, who was checking the bathroom for intruders. He crabbed around, checking the windows and doors, then looked at Max and put his finger to his lips. “Checking for bugs,” he whispered.
Max assumed there were bugs. Whether or not this nutcase could find them, he didn’t know.
“What’s going on?” Max asked.
“I brought your script back. Remember?”
Max didn’t remember.
He didn’t remember much at all.
“I thought you’d want it, now that you’re back.”
“What script?”
“The script. Shhhh! The walls have ears.”
“How’d you find out I was here?”
“Everybody knows you’re here. The Maxter is back!” he hooted.
Suddenly Max knew why he always saw Shower Cap in a boat. “Man in the Boat,” he said.
Darren turned around. “Shhhhhhhhh!”
“Sorry,” Max whispered. “That was the name of your hit record: Man in the Boat. Wasn’t it?”
Darren nodded. “I did the drums!” He started with a flurry of hands, and Max remembered that too. Shower Cap—Darren—was always playing drums in the air.
Darren’s band, Phonetic, had had the one mildly dirty hit, “Man in the Boat,” which had inspired Max’s hallucination. Max associated Darren with a boat because of the song. Max said, “What script?”
“Your script, of course. It has your name on it. I found it one time when I was waiting for my dad in the office. It’s a secret.”
Finally, someone crazier than he was.
“Should I check your pulse and respiration?” Darren asked.
“I don’t think that’s necessary. But I could use your help.”
“I’m all ears.”
Max whispered, “Where’s Gordon?”
“Gordon’s waiting.”
“Waiting?”
“He said something about cooling your heels.”
“You heard him say that?”
“I used my stethoscope.”
OK.
“On the door.”
Max wondered how much he could rely on any information he got from Darren. But he guessed that Darren had overheard Gordon talking about cooling his heels. That sounded like Gordon. It sounded like a trick Gordon would pull. Gordon loved to play psychological games. So this was why the wait.
Let Max stew.
Max had built himself up for this confrontation. He was ready to roll. But now here he was, cooling his heels, waiting for Gordon to make his grand entrance.
Two could play at that game. “So you have the script?”
Darren pulled it out from under his doctor’s jacket. “Ta-daaaa!”
Max sat down on the bed and looked at the title page.
There was nothing on it except a stamp that said, “Final Draft.”
Darren said, “I’d better go.”
“Yes,” Max said. “Thanks. Thanks a lot for finding my script.”
Darren beamed. “I thought you would like it. Don’t let the bedbugs bite—if you know what I mean.” And he pointed at the ceiling tiles. Then he danced over to the door, wriggled his fingers good-bye, and was gone.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
JERRY LOOKED OUT the plate glass windows of Gordon’s suite at the pool. “So he walked right in?”
Gordon said, “When you think about it, that was his only choice. He needs me. I’m the only one who can bring him back to full mental health.”
Pompous ass, Jerry thought.
Talia spoke for all of them: “So now what?”
“All the world is a stage, and all the players are…on it,” Gordon finished. Shakespeare had never been his subject of choice.
“Oh, puleeese.” Talia crossed her legs sexily.
Gordon ignored her. “Of course, as far as the cops and media know, he was right here all along. And no one can prove different. He was in rehab, in the sensory deprivation flotation tank, and we protected his privacy. Because that is what we do.”
Jerry laughed. “Good luck selling that, Gord. Just turn on the news. Seems to me a lot of people saw him.”
“Or saw somebody like him,” Gordon murmured. “Like his stunt double.”
“So what now, Gordon?” Talia said, that mosquito whine to her voice. Once this was over, once Jerry got control of Max’s estate, he was going to sever his relationship once and for all.
“I want him primed. If you think he’s messed up now, you should see him in a while.”
Jerry said, “We’ve got to talk about what we’re going to do next.”
“Oh, we will, Jer. But I, for one, am savoring the moment. I’ve been vindicated. From where I’m sitting, it’s ‘move along folks, nothing to see here.’ I made the right call.”
“The right call? What right call?”
“All along I’ve stood firm and told the media I’ve been protecting his privacy. The media, the cops, I told them the same thing. He’s here, he’s undergoing life-affirming therapy. Confidential therapy. I did not waver.”
Talia examined her nails. “Does this mean we’re not going to dissolve him in acid?”
SHERIFF BONNY BONNEVILLE made sure the door to his office was closed, then said to Tess. “You telling me you’d stake your career on that? Max Conroy is innocent in the killing of five people?”
It was just the two of them, although Bonny knew there were a few deputies crowded around the door, listening. Bonny lowered his voice. “He took you hostage. At gunpoint. At the very least, he’s in deep for that.”
“I know.”
Bonny stared out the window. Not that he could see anything. Just raindrops sliding down the glass and darkness behind it and a few street and porch lights, mostly glare. He tried to concentrate on everything his newly minted detective had told him, but it was hard to make sense of it.
Bonny knew what his mentor, the long-dead Sheriff Walt McKinney, who had been sheriff of Bajada County for forty years, would have said.