Ringer (26 page)

To be honest, I am not sure how best to capture Dixie’s emotions on film. I did not witness her expression. How could I have seen it from where I stood, her delightful rosy buttock in my grasp?

Ah, but I think we all know human nature well enough and women in particular to know that it must have been an exceptional moment. It did not matter to her that she had transgressed with me, or that I was fondling her pear. She was focused entirely on trying to calculate—in an instant—the tableau before her. I think, however, the equation “one plus one” was the obvious formula at hand, so Dixie was not puzzled for long.

I have flipped through the screenwriting manual, and nothing seems satisfactory to capture her surge of emotion. The book suggests the use of metaphor. So are we to insert the image of a snarling tigress? Would that overplay the moment for our audience? I fear so. The audience might imagine that somehow an actual tiger had arrived at the mansion to further confuse things, and was ready to devour the cast and end the story here. The manual also mentions the use of flash fantasies to translate the action Dixie would like to have taken were she at complete liberty to express herself in any manner whatsoever. So we see Robert suddenly standing in a desert munitions testing ground, Gina at his side. An approaching jet fighter lines up the crosshairs on his chest, Dixie in the pilot’s seat with her thumb over the red button. Missiles burst from the jet and snake down to where the target vanishes in a boom and a mushroom cloud. Again, this may overplay our hand.

Perhaps our best option is to underplay the moment, because Dixie didn’t burst into the flames of a jealous tirade or give her lover a knuckle sandwich. Yes, I believe what she did was smile brightly. This is what she had trained herself to do during all those years as a fund-raiser listening to boring old rich people and letting them fondle her as I was doing at that moment. This makes sense, too, because she put out her hand to Gina and cocked her head. Perhaps her smile was a little too strong, but other than that, I think she managed not to let laser beams shoot from her eyes.

“Hi, I’m Dixie. Have we met?”

*   *   *

Cut back to Purity’s shadowy bedroom. I know there are a lot of cutaways, but there was much that was happening all at once. A split screen might work, but chapter 12 says cutaways build more suspense in a motion picture.

At this point, Purity was dressed in black sweatpants and matching hoodie, with tennis shoes on her feet. She was holding her phone and played back my voice, from when we spoke on the beach.

“Killing a despicable person may in the end make the killer the instrument of God’s will … If Robert tried to hurt you, I would not allow it … I would kill Robert Tyson Grant to protect you.”

With a sly smile, she put the phone back in her purse and turned toward the dark bathroom, where she found a fresh bottle of eyedrops that she stuffed into her hoodie pocket. She headed for the balcony doors, then unlatched them and opened them.

*   *   *

Paco was halfway up the rock wall, and his cat eyes went wide.

*   *   *

Cut back to the foyer, and Dixie.

“You’ll have to excuse me if I’ve forgotten, I meet so many people. Bobbie, really, you should introduce your friend.”

By this time my hands had retreated behind my back, and I did my best to look like my only thoughts were of kittens and buttercups.

“I’m Gina, and I know all about the ring. I saved Robert’s life today, and we’ve made a connection.”

“A connection?” Dixie sounded like she was seeing the same kittens and buttercups I was.

I doubt it.

*   *   *

Cut back to Purity, who pauses at the balcony railing and trots to the bed table, where she opens the green bottle of Perrier and starts to gulp.

About halfway through the bottle, she knit her brow and took the bottle from her grimacing lips.

“Blech!” She set the bottle back on the bed table and made for the balcony. Stepping out into the moonlight, she deftly threw a leg over the railing and swung herself around to the rock wall.

*   *   *

Cut to a close-up of Gina’s face.

“A vision. I know about the ring, about the curse, all of it, and the ring must go back on the finger of Hernando Martinez immediately. Morty, do you have the finger?”

“My bags are still in the green car,” I said, with my buttock-grabbing hand in the air where it could not possibly have had any chance of fondling Dixie’s bottom. “You have the ring?”

She opened her hand and showed us all the ring.

“Excellent!” I moved past Dixie and the couple on the porch. “Let us get this done with and end this merry-go-round, yes?”

I marched over to the car, and Dixie looped her arm around Robert’s, leading him in my wake. She gave him a searching look, and he nodded almost imperceptibly and winked. Gina trailed behind them.

Do we need to show Gina switching out the counterfeit ring that Robert gave her for the trick one from the magic shop? I will leave that to your creative people, but it would be a good chance to see her perhaps lift her dress to access a hiding place in her underwear, or perhaps reach deep into the velvet chasm of her bosom. Let us keep that R rating alive and well.

I opened the trunk and pulled the little humidor from my bag. It creaked when I opened it, and the finger made a slight crunch as I plucked it from its recess.

Gina came forward. Eyes were wide all around, so let’s get that in extreme close-ups as I slowly extended the mummified finger toward Gina’s cupped hands.

*   *   *

At that moment, Purity was descending the wall just as Paco was ascending the wall. What happened?

Purity jumped the last few feet down from the wall, checked the pool-lit surroundings, then slid around the side of the house to the sliding glass patio doors. She peeked into the living room, lit only by light coming from the adjoining foyer. With a shove, she silently slid the door open. In a camera shot from the bushes, we see her slink into the house.

The camera in the bushes pulls back until we find Paco, who was crouched behind and next to the pool pump enclosure. He turned his yellow eyes from where Purity had vanished back toward the balcony. Emerging from the bushes, he trotted toward the rock wall and the balcony.

*   *   *

Cut back to the action by the green car.

Eyes were wide all around, remember? I slowly extended the mummified finger toward Gina’s cupped hands.

A foot from the finger, Gina slid one hand over the other, exposing a gold ring that dimly hummed in the fractured porch light.

Flame burst from Gina’s hand. She yelped.

The ring fell to the macadam, sizzling and shooting sparks before it made a loud pop.

Only a scorch mark and a puff of smoke remained where the ring had been.

All four of us stared down at the ground, mouths agape, and perhaps the camera can capture this by looking up at us looking down.

Grant: “Holy…”

Dixie: “My stars!”

Grant: “What was that?”

Dixie: “It exploded!”

Me: “You do not see that every day. Wow.”

“That smarts.” Gina was waving her hand in the air—I don’t think she expected the trick ring to get so hot.

Dixie looked at Grant in amazement. “The ring just exploded when she put it near the finger!”

Grant shrugged, a squint gripping his eyes.

I looked cautiously at the finger, a little uncertain as to whether it, too, might explode, and gently placed it back in the humidor, snapping the lid shut.

Gina was trying to ignore her burned hand.

“The curse is over. The ring is no more.”

Of course the ring was in her underpants, next to where almost any man would forfeit his worldly possessions to be. Perhaps we can do an X-ray shot of the counterfeit ring in her undies?

Dixie’s eyes stopped wobbling with wonder when she hit upon what this all meant. The fake ring had been destroyed, so Morty would stop asking for the real one. She glanced over to where we see another X-ray shot of the
real
ring in Grant’s pocket. OK, I did not know where he had it at that moment, but he never liked to be separated from it, and it was not on his finger or on a chain around his neck. Next, she imagined an X-ray shot through the house, to where Purity lay dead in a crumpled heap on the patio, Paco sneaking back into the cabana.

Dixie smiled and extended her hands to either side, to Robert and myself.

“I think we should pray,” she chirped.

*   *   *

Cut away to a close-up of the Visine bottle. It is upside down over an open decanter of amber Scotch, blue pool light playing on the wall in the background. Purity’s fingers squeeze the entire contents into the Scotch, the surface of the Scotch foaming lightly. We hear Purity yawn in the background.

*   *   *

Cut to Tony peeking over the backseat of the limo, a phone to his ear.

“I think she did it. Yeah, the ring exploded and everything, they were all standing around watching. She must have the ring. Hm? Praying. That’s what I said. Yeah, they’re all standing around where the ring burned up holding hands in a circle, their heads down. I think they’re praying.”

*   *   *

Cut to Paco, his face sandwiched by clothing and dimly lit through slats in the closet door. In a POV or “point of view” shot, we see what he sees: Purity’s bed and room.

Paco mumbled to himself in Spanish, so insert subtitles:

“Oh, Santa Muerte, I call upon you so that through your image, you may free me from failure in my mission. Do not abandon me from your protection, and I ask your blessing upon your devotee Paco, and that I am blessed with wealth for accomplishing what has been denied me. I go without fear, but if they direct that I should die and you do not protect me from failure, come and take me. So be it.”

He lifted his Santa Muerte amulet to his lips and kissed it.

*   *   *

“Amen,” Dixie said, raising her head.

Now that’s a cutaway and a half, don’t you think?

Dixie sidled up to Gina, turning her toward the limo. “You have been an absolute lifesaver, Gina, do you know that? You saved Bobbie’s life and then you come all the way out here to act on your vision and end the curse. How can we repay you for all your troubles? Are you OK to drive all the way back to the city? Perhaps you can take Morty with you?”

“Nonsense.” Robert stepped forward. “It’s late, everybody should stay the night. If she drove back now they wouldn’t be home until three in the morning. That’s not safe. Please, Gina, Morty, stay the night, we have plenty of room. In fact, come on in and have a drink. I for one could go for a Scotch.”

Remember those laser beams in Dixie’s eyes? Now we see them, and they are boring right through Grant.

“
Sweetheart,
I’m sure these people have better things to do than—”

“Hey, I could go for a drink!” I smiled and turned to Gina. “Let us both stay and then drive together back to Manhattan in daylight. It has been far too long a day, yes? I am sure you would not refuse the hospitality of the man who is so indebted to you.”

I could see Gina hesitate and avert her eyes. “You’re very kind, but I have this aunt who needs me.”

“Who is with her now?” I asked.

“Well, my other aunt, but…”

I persisted. “This other aunt—is she the kind to abandon the other aunt?”

What was I up to? Yes, I did not want to miss the opportunity—however remote—for some sort of hanky-panky, preferably with Gina, though Dixie remained a possibility. Still, my motive to stay the night was more than that. I may be an idiot at times, like with allowing myself to be taken for a ride by Purity, but I am from East Brooklyn, after all. Street smarts count.

Gina still hesitated, but without much hope: “Well…”

“I insist!” Grant put his arm around Gina on one side and me on the other, guiding us toward the house. “Dixie? Perhaps you could go upstairs and check on Purity. I’m guessing she was probably pretty drunk, am I right?”

The look of dismay on Dixie’s face melted to reveal a sly smile.

“Yes,
of course,
Bobbie, I’ll go right up and make sure she’s OK.”

*   *   *

Cut to Paco’s POV of Purity coming through the balcony doors, hurriedly stripping off her clothes. She headed for the closet and the deadly headhunter Paco.

Footsteps on the stair made Purity stop and pivot back toward the bed, where she kicked her clothes under the bed and dashed off-screen to the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

Paco sees the bedroom door open. Dixie cautiously put her head around the corner and peered at the bed.

“Purity?” She stepped into the room, a smile spreading on her face as she surveyed the bed, then locked eyes on the open balcony doors.

Slowly, almost reverently, Dixie stepped toward the balcony. From outside and below the balcony, we see her approach, looking over the edge, expecting to see Purity’s crumpled body on the patio. Behind her, we see Paco. He said, “Psst!”

Dixie looked like she’d been electrocuted—but Paco slapped a hand on her mouth before she could scream.

“Girl no sleep.” Paco jerked his head in the direction of the bathroom. “No drunk.”

From the bathroom, there was the sound of the shower coming on.

*   *   *

In the living room, from behind the fancy polished bar, Grant had fixed Gina and me up with glasses of wine. And for himself?

He had just poured Dixie and himself a big fat Scotch from the poisoned decanter. Yes, eyedrops are a deadly poison. The prostitutes in Tijuana sometimes use it on their undesirable clients to avoid actually having to have sex with them.

It was at that juncture that I patted my jacket pocket and found an empty bottle of Visine. I thought this curious, but shrugged it off and tossed the small plastic bottle with my thumb and forefinger prints into a waste can next to the bar. Purity’s trail of evidence pointing to me was impeccable, yes?

Grant raised his glass. “Well, here’s to being rid of the curse. Hazzah!”

Dixie appeared in the doorway, trying not to look frazzled. “Thank goodness, darling.”