“Buddy, Buddy,” Jack said, brimming with gratitude, his eyes filling with tears, “where would I be without my Buddy? You’re my oldest friend in all the world, do you know that?”
“Up, shit-for-brains,” Buddy ordered him, and released Jack’s jaw to grab his hand instead and twist his thumb painfully backward. “On your fucking feet.”
“You’ll save me, Buddy,” Jack said, beginning to cry, struggling to rise from the couch, making it at last to the vertical, tottering there. “You’ll save me, Buddy Buddy. You always save me, you always do.”
“March,” Buddy told him, twisting his thumb.
“It was Wendy,” Jack whispered, shivering with dread, and the two old friends made their way out of that room and away from that party.
I’m so cold. I hurt all over. My thumb hurts, too, but that’s something else. My jaw hurts, too, but that’s something else. It’s just that I’m so cold. Since I died, I’m cold a lot.
“What?” I say. Michael O’Connor has said something, but I was too cold to hear him.
So he repeats it. “Why did you call that girl Wendy?”
Wendy? What have I been saying? Something must have gone wrong, my balance isn’t right, I’m not paying attention. This cannot be. I must be on guard, always on guard, and especially on guard with the media. Oh, my, yes. “Wendy?” I say, casually, lifting my head, thinking back. “That was the poor girl’s name, I suppose.”
“It was your first girl’s name, too,” he says.
Oh, damn you, Michael, you do have a memory between those ears, don’t you? I smile at him. “Lots of Wendys in this old world,” I say. “Anyway, it got covered up that we were there. Me and two other guys with... names.”
“I don’t remember anything about it,” O’Connor says.
“You wouldn’t,” I assure him. “When a property is as valuable as I am, a lot of very serious professional people see to it that nothing happens to lower that value. I am not a person anymore, you know, Michael, no, sir, not me. I am a property. A valuable property. A whole lot of people would be shit outa luck if anything happened to this property. So nothing does.”
“Well, some things do,” O’Connor suggests. “Some things did, anyway; you told me about them.”
“But not anymore.” I look around, at my domain. “I stay here now, mostly, since that time up at Big Sur. I make one picture a year now, that’s all. I don’t need to do any more; I don’t need the money. I just have to do the one to keep myself current, part of the scene. Grandstanders, now, that’s what I do. I don’t, you know, act anymore. I could if I wanted, I still could, but it’s hard, it’s too hard, and who needs it? They don’t pay their money to see me become somebody, not anymore. They pay to see me be me. An idealized them. I do clenched-jawline stuff a lot. I pick properties with speeches in them.” I glower at Michael O’Connor: “You don’t love me. You never loved me. You never loved anybody. You don’t know how to love.”
This speech seems to make O’Connor uncomfortable. He says, “But what about the talent? The gift?”
“Among my souvenirs.”
“Well... what do you do with the rest of your time?” he asks. “The nine or ten months a year when you’re not making a movie.”
“I stay home,” I say, smiling at the thought. “Right here. Anything I need, they bring me. I’m safe here.” I smile at Michael, from my safety.
Flashback 24
The naked giggling girl ran across the patio, past the pool, around the edge of the rose garden, and off across the rolling lawn. The naked Jack pursued her, gasping, grinning, dropping to his knees from time to time, struggling up again, lumbering on, following that round and muscular behind.
The girl had been told to see to it that Jack got his exercise, so that’s what she was doing. When he got too close, she would dart away, laughing slightly, sticking her tongue out at him, wriggling a lot to encourage him. And when he would fall back, when he would seem to lose heart for the chase, she would slow, her looks would become seductive, her movements lewd, and slowly the light would come back into his eyes, his trembling limbs would firm themselves, and he would go on with the chase. Because, as they both knew, the other part of her instruction was that eventually he must catch her.
Out across the lawn she went. The distant high wall, which was topped by broken glass embedded in the cement, was barely visible through the surrounding layers of ornamental brush. Panting, grinning, eyes rolling, arms pumping, Jack followed, weaving from side to side, slowing, struggling, slowing, stopping, falling forward, landing on his face on the lush green lawn.
The girl ran on another few paces, her bright laughter rising toward the blue sky, but then she looked back and saw Jack lying there, face down, and she stopped, turned around, put her small fists on her lovely hips and considered the situation. A ruse? A temporary rest? But he wasn’t moving, not at all, so finally she raised her voice and shouted toward the house, “He fell down!”
Immediately, the door in the end of the house beyond the multicar garage, the door leading to the security offices, opened and four young hefty men came trotting out. They all had short, military-style haircuts. All wore gray slacks, white shirts, narrow neutral ties, and beige or gray sports jackets. The four of them came trotting in unison across the lawn toward Jack as the naked girl also walked toward the unconscious man, wondering if her job here was finished now.
The security men reached Jack, flipped him over, checked him for vital signs, discussed the situation briefly with one another, and came to the conclusion this was no more than a normal kind of passing out, requiring no particular medical attention. Therefore, as the girl wandered away to get dressed, each of the four security men picked up one of Jack’s limbs and carried him like a firemen’s net across the lawn and through the main front door of the house.
Where Buddy was just coming down the main stairs, in a light gray summer suit, accompanied by two servants carrying his matched luggage. Hoskins, at the foot of the stairs to wish Mr. Pal bon voyage, became the hub of all motion, as Buddy and his entourage approached from above and Jack in the grip of his security quartet was borne in from without.
Hoskins gave his first attention to the conscious person, saying, “Enjoy your trip, sir.”
His voice and manner grim, his cold eyes on Jack, Buddy said, “Oh, I will, Hoskins, believe me. I will.”
“Yes, sir.” Hoskins raised an eyebrow at the right front security man. “Yes?” he asked.
“No sweat,” the security man said. “We’ll just put him to bed.”
“Bed,” said the ghost of Jack, and smiled.
The security men made their way up the stairs with their burden. Buddy paused to watch them go, and the servants paused with him, carrying his bags. Jack and the security men reached the top of the stairs and disappeared on down the wide white hall. Buddy looked at Hoskins. He said, “Give Jack a message for me.”
“Certainly, sir.”
“Tell him,” Buddy said, “not to kill himself before I get back.”
Hoskins nodded, accepting receipt of the message. Buddy turned about and left, the servants trailing with his bags.