My flight was boarding. There was one seat in the bulkhead row and I grabbed it.
14
“I KNOW REX isn’t expecting me.
I
wasn’t expecting to be here. Trust me, he’s going to want to see me.”
The dark-haired, long-lashed, fat-free, wrinkle-free, concern-free young woman at the desk looked at me as if I’d ridden into Los Angeles on a load of cantaloupes. “Mr. Redmon is very busy.”
Agents are always busy. I leaned closer. “In a few minutes the police will be on the line to him. He’s going to want to know what that’s about. I’m here to tell him.”
She nodded, sending a wave of hair over one eye. “That’s a good one. But, as I said—”
The phone rang.
“Better not answer it unless you want to be lying to the police.”
Her hand paused over the receiver. Her expression said she didn’t believe me. The phone rang again.
“Or you could put the call through and let Rex take it cold.”
She punched another line. “Rex, there’s a Darcy Lott here. She says it’s about”—she lowered her voice—“the police.” She listened and then mouthed a question to me.
“No, not drugs,” I said.
Behind her the door opened. Holding it was a wiry guy whose hair was as red and curly as my own but whose angular face was so at odds with it that it was a moment before I could focus on his annoyed expression. And another before I spotted his crutches and the cast on one foot. “From kicking ass?”
“Bruised up to the collarbone.” He swung back, around a glass desk, and onto a green leather chair. “Darcy Lott. You’re Guthrie’s girl.”
Guthrie’d talked about me with his agent?
“You’ve got a good memory.”
“You looked sharp in the high fall off the cupola in
Barbary Nights
. Things are good with you?”
He meant agent-wise. So, Rex Redmon hadn’t heard about Guthrie. No reason he would have. I had given Higgins his name, but not that of his agency. Anyway, Jed Elliot, the second unit director, and Mo Mason, the camera cart guy, were on the scene and it was a no-brainer she’d go for them first. “Guthrie’s dead,” I announced.
“Drugs?”
“Why’d you guess that? Was he using?”
“Safe guess. But I never heard of him wasted.”
“Come to his place with me. I want to get it in order before the cops tear it apart.”
“Cops are on this and no one’s notified me? He was killed? How? You involved?”
“If I were a suspect, I’d be in shackles.”
“Guthrie?” he said. And it was as if the reality of it had just hit him. “Damn! He’s always been so careful . . .”
“But?” Suddenly I remembered having that same feeling on the set. Guthrie had always been reliable, always on time, walking the gag first, triple-checking his truck and every other vehicle and prop involved. Always.
Until suddenly, he hadn’t.
“Nothing.” He clamped his teeth together but couldn’t hide a quiver. “Damn! Guthrie’s the best!”
“Has he been with you long?”
“Whole career. Fifteen years.”
I’d been in the business over twenty, and Guthrie was older. “What did he do before?”
Redmon shrugged. There was no reason it would matter to him. Then he surprised me with, “College, I guess.”
“And between?”
“Hey, he was just twenty-two when he signed on.”
I nodded. But, in fact, that couldn’t have been right. Guthrie must have cut years off his age. Not unknown in Hollywood, but you don’t usually keep your agent in the dark. There really was a lot I didn’t know about my guy. A lot no one knew. “Look, you’re busy. Going to his place isn’t going to be any fun for either of us. Let’s do it before the cops are on the phone.”
“Hey, what kind of accident was this? Elliot knows his business. With him, I don’t worry. It was Guthrie’s truck. How could—What the hell happened?”
I sat down. “I don’t know. One minute we’re fighting a fire, a real fire, on the dock, worried about getting the truck out, he’s talking about our future—”
“Guthrie, talking marriage?”
“Nah, starting our production company. Lott and Guthrie.”
“Oh,” he said with obvious relief. “He have backing? Or you two talking dreams? Can’t believe he—What gave way?”
I stood up. “I’ll tell you in the car. If you don’t get out of here, you’re going to find yourself waiting in line for an interview booth downtown.”
“Get out of here where? I’m not taking you to Guthrie’s house. You say you’re his friend—I don’t doubt you—but—”
“What can I tell you—”
“Nothing.
You
can’t fucking tell me. You’ve already said more than I want to hear.” His narrow features contorted for an instant setting his face even more at odds with his shock of curls.
I put a hand on his arm. “I get it. Maybe there’s nothing in Guthrie’s house that you’ll care about going public. Nothing about you, nothing about any of your other clients. I don’t know . . .” But I do know when to stop talking.
He opened a drawer and flipped a ring with two keys across the desk. “Get it back to me when you’re done there.”
Where is
there? I, his girlfriend, could hardly admit I didn’t know.
The phone rang.
“Don’t answer that,” I said as I shut the door. In the waiting room, I gave the receptionist a smile worthy of an old friend and flashed the keys. “I’m on my way to Guthrie’s. D’you have any mail you want me to take? You’ve probably got a ton of junk waiting to forward.”
Please, Guthrie, have used this as a mail drop.
“He was in a couple days ago, so I doubt it.”
“Take a look anyway, huh?”
Surely, if there’s one thing an American can count on, it’s junk mail. Surely.
“Here. Just this.”
“Thanks.” I waited till I was outside to read the address.
I’ve spent time in L.A., but not enough to know shortcuts or light hours on the freeways, if such exist. One thing you can say for it, though, is there’s no dawdling on the roads. You merge onto the 405 doing 70 miles per hour and never go that slow again. So, it didn’t take me long to get to the canyon where Guthrie lived. Lucky for me, since the last thing
I wanted was the local cops, whom Higgins would have notified by now, finding me here. Not after she’d leaned on me to stay out of it and I’d huffed about her having no leads. Then the next thing she knows, I leave town and show up at Guthrie’s house. She would have gotten hold of Rex Redmon by now, and there was no percentage in him sticking his neck out for me. All I had going for me was speed and the fact that for the LAPD, any local call would bump an out-of-town request.
Why was I so surprised Guthrie had a house down here? A bed and coffee setup do not a home make. The address on his driver’s license was the truck yard. Had I just wanted to believe that bed in the trailer was for nightly use rather than recreation up and down the state? Whatever. As I drove up the winding canyon road, whipping around the curves, I could see why he’d chosen this spot, and why he’d found a sea-level spot to stash the eighteen-wheeler.
A patrol car pulled around me on a short straightaway, but it wouldn’t be headed for Guthrie’s, not at that speed. Indeed, when I found the address it was nowhere around. Still, I parked a ways down the hill and walked back up thinking about the cottage.
Zen masters talk a lot about illusion: we create illusion after illusion, taking what we eyeball of a situation and filling in the empty spaces the way you look at a painting and automatically brush in the garden behind a picket fence. In the time since I’d seen this address on Guthrie’s mail, I’d created a picture of where he lived—in a modern box of a house, sort of like the truck on a foundation, with windows. His real house, here before me, was a white cottage set on the downslope behind a street-level garage. Boisterous red-flowered bushes pushed out under blue jacaranda trees by a steep curve of stone steps leading precariously to the covered porch. It was the last place I would have pictured for the king of the trailer gag and the antithesis of his sister’s miserable shuttered-up affair.
The stone steps were irregular slabs salvaged from a torn-out sidewalk; the descent would have been daunting to anyone not in great condition. Behind the garage was a pulley with a car engine dangling. I smiled, picturing him hauling it up and lowering it into a spiffed-up ride like that black convertible he’d been driving across the bridge.
The one, I remembered with a shock, that had covered his body.
Brakes screeched above. I jerked back, listening as the vehicle whipped down the hill. Patrol car, or a thrill-seeker? The winding two-lane had to be a speed-freak’s wet dream.
The house was small, with a peaked roof and a two-step porch. The window shades were drawn. I had the feeling they’d fluttered; I leaned closer, checking for an aftershock, but they hung straight down. Something crackled behind me. I jerked around, but saw only leaves.
Enough drama! Just do it!
I stepped up on the porch, stuck the key in the lock, and pushed open the door.
“What the hell are you doing?” The woman was blonde, tan, and pointing a huge pistol at my heart.
“Hey, I’ve got the key. I just let myself in with Guthrie’s key. What are
you
doing in his house?” I was shouting, to cover my shaking.
Who was she?
Her fingers tightened on the gun.
“Put your hands up!”
“What’ve you got in here that you need to come to the door with a gun?”
Wrong approach!
She clicked off the safety. “Turn around and put your hands—”
On the road, brakes squealed again. “You hear that? It’s a police car. Don’t believe me? Take a look.”
She took a step toward the window.
I lunged. She hit the floor with me on top. The gun skidded across the hardwood.
My head was crammed into her shoulder. Her eyes were blue, wide, and scared. I eased myself up till I was glaring inches from her face. “Who are you? What are you doing in Guthrie’s house? Tell me!”
“What?”
Another set of brakes squealed. I didn’t have time for this. “Who are you?”
“Melissa Guthrie.”
“Guthrie’s—?”
“Guthrie’s wife.”
15
IN AN INSTANT everything fell into place—Guthrie’s comfort with secrets, his long absences, and the rolling bedroom for the quick and intimate, all the things I’d taken as corresponding to my own need not to share. My face went scalding hot; my eyes blurred. I was ashamed, humiliated, and disgusted. I wanted to bury myself two miles deep. I was nauseated and clammy all over. And then I was furious.
I pushed myself up, grabbed the gun, and pointed it at her. “Guthrie’s wife? Prove it.”
“Hey, you’re in my house.”
“Prove you’re his wife. Show me your marriage license, your tax return, his will or yours, for chrissakes.”
“I’m gonna call the police.”
“They’re already on their way and they’re going to be asking you the same question. Show me the proof! Now!” I was yelling to keep her off-balance. It was dawning on me how untenable a position I’d gotten myself into. I just wanted to find something and get out before I ended up in a cell.
“In the bedroom.” Her voice was breaking. She was shaking all over.
When this was over I was going to feel bad about her, but now I was just scared. “Walk! I’m right behind you.”
She moved, flat-footed, like she was dizzy. Maybe she was.
With every step I realized more what a mess I was in. She’d be okay once I was gone—shaken, but okay. I was facing a breaking and entering charge and I had her gun in my hand. Jesus, kidnap! That’s serious time! My only chance was to really find something here.
If
there was something here. If Guthrie wasn’t just your standard jerk getting some on the side. If he hadn’t been fooling this woman more than he had me.
She moved through a hallway with doors leading off in all directions—to the bathroom, a closet, the bedroom. There, abruptly, she stopped.
“Where is it? Get it!”
She didn’t move, except to hunch her shoulders. Was she blanking from fear or—
“There is no proof, is there?”
She spun, arms out, hands clasped, and knocked me back into the hall. By the time I got my balance, she was out the front door.
I raced after her, but tires were screeching before I cleared the porch. I walked back into the house. I’d been worried about running into the police here when I arrived. That seemed lifetimes ago. Once Guthrie’s wife—
wife!—
called 911, patrol cars would be lining up outside. I needed to get out fast. I wasn’t crazy about taking the gun, but I damned well wasn’t about to leave it lying around here. I pocketed it.
But why did she have it? What kind of woman comes to the door with a gun? What was she hiding? Who was she afraid of? What the hell was going on with this guy I so obviously had not known? I’d come here to get a sense of the life he lived beyond me, before the police rooted through it. Now I was twice as much in the dark.
I didn’t expect local cops who’d picked up Higgins’s request to warn me with a siren, but if Guthrie’s wife called about a burglar, they might. I unlocked the back door and eyed the terrain for fast exits.
The cottage was three rooms and a bath. It was the kind of place a guy with a bed in his truck would live: rattan love seat with print cushions, a couple of folding chairs, and a plastic milk crate in between as a poor man’s coffee table. The bedroom was practically an ode to cardboard: an open packing carton displaying socks and underwear and another with T-shirts. Laptop on square box. Hard, uninviting double bed. Plus still-sealed boxes. It looked like he was moving in. Or out. Or like his wife was.
His
wife
!
I paused, listening for a car, then booted up the computer.
It demanded a password.
Guthrie? Stuntman? Stuntgag? Truckjockey? Much as it galled me, I tried Melissa, but it didn’t work either.