The Right Thing to Do

“The Right Thing to Do” is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

A Ballantine Books eBook Original

Copyright © 2015 by Jonathan Kellerman

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

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ALLANTINE
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OUSE
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eBook ISBN 9781101965191

Cover design: Scott Biel

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Cover

Title Page

Copyright

The Right Thing to Do

Books by Jonathan Kellerman

About the Author

Malcolm Bluestone stood by as three men tried to kill his brother.

The first assassin came from behind Steve, materializing in a puff of dust, a rifle aimed at Steve’s head. Steve wheeled and fired before the bastard’s trigger finger could budge.

A red spot tattooed the assassin’s forehead. As he fell, he gave a look of dull consternation followed by the terror of insight.

By that time, Bastards Two and Three were already charging, Two brandishing a long-barreled revolver, Three howling savagely and waving a bowie knife.

They came at Steve simultaneously, Knife to the right, Gun to the left, forcing a split-second decision. One miscalculation, and Malcolm would be looking at his brother’s corpse.

Steve used his Colt to strike out faster than the snap of a bullwhip, chopping Knife’s plunging arm. The guy fought for equilibrium, the bowie flying from his hand. He scurried to retrieve it. Rather than try to stop him, Steve turned his attention to Mr. Gun, who’d lofted his weapon.

Three quick bursts of gunfire. Another headshot, followed by two bloody holes at center body mass.

Mr. Gun fell hard on his back. Mr. Knife had retrieved his blade but was still half turned, showing part of his back to Steve. The easy thing would’ve been for Steve to plug him in the spine and be finished.

Not Steve’s way.

He waited until he and Knife were face-to-face, Knife hefting the bowie, grinning and growling and plunging forward.

Steve deflected the blow, this time with his own sleeve, barely missing the upthrust of the blade. Knife tottered but came at Steve a third time, silvery steel jabbing inches from Steve’s face.

Steve feinted backward, stepped forward, repeated the pattern; dancing, confounding Knife. Finally making his own charge and distracting Knife with a flourish of his gun, he kicked the bastard in the nuts.

Knife moaned and bent over double and Steve rabbit-punched him on the nape of his neck and the guy collapsed in agony, landing atop Gun’s body. Steve took the knife, glanced at the weapon disparagingly, tossed it into the brush.

The sun was sinking, shadows descending on ramshackle buildings and the sharp-jawed, clean-cut contours of Steve’s tan face.

From the ground, Knife muttered something pitiful and incoherent.

Steve grinned and holstered his Colt and took out a cigarette and lit it.

Knife mewled again.

Steve said, “I kept you around, amigo, because we need to talk.”

The director yelled, “Cut.”

The film was a low-budget oater titled
Blood and Dust,
a genre already losing fashion in the States and destined for immediate export to Italy and smaller European countries like Andorra and San Remo and Monte Carlo. In Milan, it would be overdubbed in out-of-sync Italian and rechristened
Il Desperado
.

The shoot was at a place called Deuces Wild Film Ranch, out in the Antelope Valley, seventy miles north of L.A. and accessible only by rutted roads that did nothing for the suspension of Steve’s teal-blue ’56 Eldorado convertible. Steve didn’t mind, assuring Malcolm, “It’s just a big bucket of bolts, they come and go, maybe next time I’ll get a Jag XKE.”

This morning, driving to the lot, an unfiltered Camel drooping from his lips, he’d reacted to a particularly harsh bump by putting on speed, as if daring the terrain. Malcolm holding on as Steve had laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m more concerned about your kidneys, little bro.”

Malcolm laughed, too, and said he was fine, even though his back was starting to hurt like hell.

No way he’d look like a weakling in front of a man’s man like Steve Stage.

It was the summer of 1965 and Malcolm’s second trip to see his brother.

The first visit had taken place in ’58, when Malcolm, fourteen, had been the beneficiary of Steve’s surprise offer, raised during one of his irregular long-distance calls to Brooklyn: a one-year-late bar mitzvah gift consisting of a full, expenses-paid week of fun in the L.A. sun, just the two of them hanging out, God knew it had been a while.

Not quite accurate, in truth, they’d never hung out, Malcolm only in third grade by the time Steve left for L.A. During the scant time they’d lived at home together, the brothers had never fought. But the age difference put them in two different worlds.

When Steve invited him, Malcolm couldn’t believe his luck. California was something he’d imagined from photos in
Life
magazine and the movies and, more important, Steve was viewing him as worthy. He was ready to pack a bag and walk from Brooklyn if he had to.

But first he’d need to convince Mama and Papa, not exactly the most adventurous people around. Taking the train from Flatbush to the city made them nervous, let alone having “The Baby” fly clear across the country by himself on a ten-hour plane ride that threatened to cramp his long legs, who knew what would happen, he could even end up crippled by a parentally imagined permanent paralysis.

“I’ll be fine,” he assured them.

“That’s the problem,” said Papa. “You think you know, but you don’t. Because you’re large, but you’re still
small
. Also, you look older than you really are, people take advantage.”

“Exactly,” said Mama. “Just a big baby, at heart.”

On the phone, Steve said, “So, okay with the bosses?”

Malcolm said, “You talk to them.”

He left the room, hearing Papa say, “So what? That’s no solution, Siggy.”

But in the end, Steve convinced them. He always did.

A year into puberty, Malcolm was already six three and a half and still growing, Dr. Rosetti reassuring Mama and Papa there was nothing to worry about, no need to do hormone tests. For the umpteenth time.

“He’s just a healthy boy, you people aren’t exactly peewees.”

“But not like him,” said Mama.

“Tall is not a problem, Mrs. Bluestone. Stop worrying.”

As if that were even worth repeating. Nothing stopped Willy and Sabina Bluestone from worrying; from what Malcolm had seen, anxiety was their shared hobby. But this trip to L.A. went beyond that. They had
questions
.

In the first place, how safe was flying?

What if you get lost? Eat something bad?

What if someone kidnaps you?

And if by some miracle he arrived intact, there was The Real Problem.

Both of them shuddering, as they wondered how being alone for a week with The Handsome One would impact The Smart One.

“Steve’s great,” Malcolm reassured them.

Mama said, “We love him but you know what he’s like.”

Papa said, “The life out there.”

“Meaning?”

“It’s barbaric. What he does.”

“Girls,” said Mama.

Papa said, “What do you know about girls, there could be…experiences.”

“Oh, c’mon—”

“Mallie,” Mama said, “put on your thinking cap and come to the smart conclusion: You’re too
young
for girls, no matter
what
he tells you.”

Papa said, “That’s not an insult, you’re normal. But there’s no hurry. One day, you’ll have a girl, everyone has a girl. Meanwhile, don’t listen if he tries to get you in any sort…ach, just be careful.”

Meaning they’d resigned themselves to shipping The Baby off to the barbarous coast. In the meantime, though, why miss the opportunity to drive him nuts.

For the next few weeks, he was subjected to speeches, pronouncements, long grave looks. Malcolm not even bothering to respond. It went on like that even in the TWA lounge at Idlewild, until, thank God, the boarding announcement sounded.

They stuck with him until the gate attendant said, “Passengers only.” Stood there, huddled and downcast, as if they were shipping him off to Sing Sing.

Malcolm used his long legs to get the hell on the plane.

For much of the flight, his parents’ not-so-subtle warnings about sexual adventure filled him with fantasies. But turned out they had nothing to fear, the trip ending up a sedate and conventional experience.

Steve, on hiatus between films, acted the gracious host down to sleeping on the living room couch of his Beverly Hills apartment and insisting Malcolm use the bed. And, disappointingly, a female presence never intruded on the time the brothers spent together. Though Malcolm did find a drawer full of rubbers in the bathroom, some of which were in strange colors and had fringes around them. There were also nudie magazines in a little floor rack next to the toilet and Malcolm was pleased that Steve had left them there for him to see, maybe he was finally regarding Malcolm, thirteen years his junior, as a man. Or at least capable of becoming one.

During the entire week Malcolm spent in Los Angeles in ’58, Steve made sure he ate a solid breakfast, took him to good restaurants for lunch and dinner, and saw to it that they covered the usual tourist spots, driving all over town in the blue Eldorado, the top down when weather permitted, which was usually. At red lights, people regarded the Cadillac with admiration. The driver, too, it was apparent to Malcolm. Steve reciprocating with The Smile, that sudden flash of perfect white teeth. The sparkle in his dark eyes that went with it.

After one particularly intense smile session with a blonde in a T-bird, Steve turned to Malcolm. “Like the pearlies, kid?”

“Yeah, they’re great.”

Steve tapped an incisor and lit up a Camel. “Courtesy, Dr. Weldon Markowitz, the best damn dentist on Bedford Drive. Cost me a damn fortune but, you know, tools of the trade. Thank God I’m a guy, you should see what chicks have to do.”

The summer of ’58, they cruised all over the city, Steve showing him Olvera Street, a strange little outpost right in the middle of downtown L.A. but looking like an old Mexican village. Then over to the Watts Tower, which was beyond different but actually pretty interesting as an example of a hobby taken to the extreme. Next came the vulgar, overgrown polychrome pagoda that was Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, where Malcolm was pretty sure Steve started moving especially slowly. And glancing around more than usual.

Hoping someone would notice him?

No one did, but Steve didn’t display any disappointment. Not Steve’s style, with him it was either good cheer or strong silence. But that changed when Steve came upon Gary Cooper’s footprint and autograph in the sidewalk and Malcolm was certain he saw his brother grimace for a second, then look kind of wistful and turn away, as if needing a moment to himself.

But then, a second later, Steve was happy and confident and talkative again and they were off to a restaurant on the Boulevard called Musso & Frank to gorge on shrimp cocktails, gigantic steaks, an extra plate of a fish called sand dabs “for the table,” mountains of home fries, sides of creamed spinach, Lyonnaise potatoes, brussels sprouts, macaroni au gratin, and two slabs of spumoni for each of them as dessert.

Washing all that down with Martinis for Steve, extra olives on the side, and four bottles of Coke for Malcolm.

Steve had polished off half his steak when he said, “Try this,” and unfolded a menu to block them and offered Malcolm a sip of the cocktail. The taste reminded Malcolm of the smell in Dr. Rosetti’s office when it was time for a booster shot.

He said, “Delicious,” and Steve cracked up and ate an olive.

That night, lying in bed, Malcolm wondered why seeing Gary Cooper’s star had caused his brother to get a little down. His best guess was that it had something to do with the fact that Steve had only worked on one picture with the star.
Springfield Rifle,
back in ’52, not long after Steve’s arrival in Hollywood.

Not a big part, Steve had been just another Union soldier in a film that got mostly bad reviews and pretty much faded away. But Malcolm told his classmates they had to see it, it was the greatest movie of the year.

In one of the few letters Steve wrote to Malcolm, he noted that Cooper was a “man’s man. In every meaning of the word.”

Other places Steve took Malcolm in ’58 included the business district of his own neighborhood, Beverly Hills, where he pointed out Dr. Markowitz’s office building and said, “There’s also a dermatologist who sands chicks’ faces down like they’re made out of balsa wood.” The Caddy glided past fancy stores on Rodeo Drive. Pointing to a custom shirt-maker, Steve said, “Thinking of having them make me some with those English pin collars, that extra little bit, you know?” Passing a haberdasher, he said, “Bought a mohair suit there, but usually, I like Sy Devore.”

When Malcolm pointed out the Woolworths on Beverly Drive and said, “That could be anywhere,” Steve shook his head. “Can’t even see it, kid. For me anywhere doesn’t exist.”

At the beach in Santa Monica, Steve wore tiny black bathing trunks, flexed his muscles and breathed in salt air and ran for the water. Soon, he’d swum way too far out, beyond everyone. Malcolm remained on the blanket, reading the morning paper, wanting to learn about an L.A. his brother couldn’t teach him about. Keeping his T-shirt on over his baggy trunks because his own body was soft and he didn’t like getting burned, anyway.

At nearby Pacific Ocean Park, Steve said, “Wait’ll you see this!” and Malcolm was amused to find an organ grinder and a trained monkey right outside the entrance, trained seals right inside. The P.O.P. roller coaster looked flimsy and it squealed and crackled as Steve and Malcolm got in, the car barely able to contain them. They rode it four times in a row, which was three more than Malcolm would’ve chosen. Steve whooping every inch of the sinuous track and yelling, “Isn’t this great!”

Finally, there was Disneyland, where the Matterhorn served as an even greater stimulus for Steve’s elation. Lunch that day consisted of huge, chemical-tasting, improbably green pickles, mealy corn dogs, and butter-soaked popcorn. Steve jaunty and proud of everything, as if he’d designed the park himself.

Malcolm found the place kind of creepy, like one of those Potemkin villages he’d read about in
Life
magazine, and way too immature for him, but he said, “Excellent,” when Steve asked him how he liked it. Steve was extending himself in a way he never had before and no way would Malcolm do anything to screw that up.