the Devil's Workshop (1999) (26 page)

"Wanna bet?" Clancy said, and he led his friend back inside the mission.

Twelve hours later, at six o'clock that night, Cris was showered and dressed. His face was shaved, and his clothes had been washed and ironed. Clancy took him across to the Lincoln and stood with him in the gathering darkness. Cris had been at the mission less than twenty-four hours. He was shaky, but sober.

"I want you to tell me who the man is who killed your little girl," Clancy said.

"There's a guy named Admiral Zoll. I read some articles. He runs the program at Fort Detrick. Headed the Pentagon Special Project that did the tests in Huntsville Prison back in the eighties."

"What's he look like?"

"I don't know. I've never seen him."

"Tell me anyway. Look inside and make up a picture."

"He's..
. H
e's big."

"Big guy. Yep, he'd have t'be," Clancy nodded. "What else?"

"He's got black hair and real black, mean eyes."

"Yeah, that's the one. That's the guy. Black eyes, mean eyes, like the devil's. Yeah, you got him now."

"And ... he doesn't give a shit about anything, about people."

"Fuckin' guy never did, Cris. Never gave one hoot in hell."

"And he, and ..." Cris stopped and looked down. "Everybody in the Gulf said I was a hero. Shit, Clance, I was just trying to stay alive. I woulda run from that Republican Guard unit, but I didn't know where the fuck I was, which way to go."

"We don't give a shit about you, Cris. Not anymore. We're here servin' vengeance. Admiral Zoll... tell me more."

"He doesn't care that his bio-weapon killed my little girl, that he ruined my life."

"Fuck you. I don't care about you. This ain't about you. Get that through yer head. I don't wanna hear about how you got fucked. Stop cryin' about poor Cris Cunningham. Vengeance's gotta be aimed, son, gotta be pointed out, not in. It's a higher power. You gotta serve it, it can't serve you."

"He ... killed her, and he doesn't care. He doesn't, because all he cares about is money and power."

"And who's gonna get this rotten son-of-a-bitch?"

"I am," Cris said softly, but it lacked conviction.

"Go serve yer vengeance, Cris. Hold it out in fronta you. But the first time you take a sip outta that bottle, this guy is gonna know. First time you take a sip, this motherfucker's won. Vengeance is your power, but this motherfucker's got rearview mirrors. He can see ya back here. He's gonna know if you fuck up, so you ain't gonna drink. You're gonna go get this godless prick."

Cris nodded. Then Clancy slipped forty bucks in his hand, "There's some money and my phone number. Don't go home, son. Don't go to yer Daddy's house. I don't know why, but a lotta your bad feelin's is there. When you're there, you look inside, you start feelin' sorry for yerself. You drink. You gotta look to your higher power, nothin' else."

"Thanks, Clancy."

Clancy nodded and watched while Cris opened the door of the Lincoln, started the engine, and drove off.

Cris didn't know where to go. He didn't have anybody he trusted. He drove around aimlessly for hours. He craved a drink, but instead made his mind blank and thought about Kennidi. Poor helpless Kennidi. He wouldn't let himself think about his hurt, his pain; he focused only on hers. He would seek vengeance for her. Several times he slowed as he saw bars. One had a neon sign, which pictured a glass that filled with neon liquor. He must have watched that glass fill twenty times. He almost went in, but forced his thoughts back to Kennidi. "Daddy, hold me. Daddy, it hurts so much." Cris slammed down on the accelerator and the Lincoln roared away, up the street.

At midnight, he found himself back at Stacy's apartment. He knocked, and after a long time, the light came on. The door opened and she was standing there in her bathrobe.

"Where have you been?" she said. "I called your house ..."

"I... I had to go see a friend."

They stood looking at one another. She thought he looked different, weaker, even more unhealthy and fragile.

"I know we don't know each other very well," he said softly, "but I can't go home. It's a long story, but I need a place to flop. Could I use your couch?"

She stood there in the doorway for a long moment, hesitant.

"I've decided I want to help you get Admiral Zoll," he said. "I want to get him for what he did to Kennidi."

After a moment of appraisal she unlatched the door and let him in.

Chapter
24

GUNFIGHT AT THE I'M OK, YOU'RE OK CORRAL

He was carrying three loaves of baked bread; one was whole wheat, one was a rich brown multi-grain, and one was some sort of black bread the color of a Hershey's chocolate bar. Of course, he was on a no-carb diet and was strictly prohibited from eating bread.

His son, Mike, was walking beside him. They were going to look at a new house, and a Realtor magically appeared, opened the door, then disappeared. They walked into the place alone. The house had no yard; in fact, there was no property at all. It was artfully suspended between two high stone canyons. The living
-
room floor was a metal grate, perched thousands of feet above a valley. Somehow Buddy and Michael could walk on the grate without falling through, but the effect was unsettling. Below them stretched a horizon as far as the eye could see. There was also a pool that hung suspended, but it was empty, formed out of the same metal grates.

"Don't worry, Dad, it's a fixer-upper, but we can do it. Once we get furniture and some flooring, it's gonna be great."

His son was now standing next to him. Close to him. Buddy craved closeness. He craved unconditional love. Nobody ever loved Buddy. They tolerated him, or partnered with him, and sometimes slept with him, but love was never the reason. Money was the glue. Then unexpectedly, Michael put an arm around Buddy's shoulder and squeezed him lovingly, easing Buddy's longing, taking away the ache.

"A project for both of us. Aren't you gonna eat your bread, Dad?"

"My nutritionist says I'm not supposed to eat carbs," Buddy said. "Strictly off my diet."

They walked up to the "picture window," which had no glass, and stood on the heart-stopping grates, somehow not falling out of the house through the floor. They marveled at the spectacular view, but when Buddy looked down, his stomach lurched. Thousands of feet below, the green valley beckoned. It was fertile land, ripe with promise.

"Y'know, Dad, I bet if we worked on the house together, we'd learn to love each other.... Aren't you gonna eat any bread?"

"All my life I've been on some diet," he told his son. "All my life, I've been hungry, trying to be what I'm not. Maybe that's why you and I could never find each other. I was always pretending to be an outlaw, a rebel. It's what I thought everybody wanted from me, but I was just acting." And then the difficult admission: "Underneath, I'm always scared, Michael."

"Call me Juan, Dad. I go by Juan now."

Buddy nodded. He was starving; he wondered what the rich black loaf would taste like. When Michael looked away, he snuck a bite of the bread It was surprisingly good, and tasted just as he'd hoped... a sweet, rich chocolate flavor. As he chewed, he knew he had been wrong. He never should have rejected his son. If he had loved Michael unconditionally, then Michael would be the one who'd naturally love him back. How could he have been blind to that before? After all, Michael was his son, his flesh and blood.

As he realized this, he felt tears of gratitude. Then he heard screaming, looked up, and saw that Mike was way too far out on the edge of the suspended pool. His arms were pinwheeling. He was falling forward, off balance. His screams got louder, more hysterical.

"Mike, what're you doing?" Buddy yelled, tears still welling in his eyes. He tried to run toward his only son, juggling the loaves of bread. He thought he could pull him back by grabbing his shirt using his one free hand, but he could not run on the tricky grates. Although before he had walked easily across them, now his feet fell clumsily between. He went down, almost plummeting through himself. His son was falling... falling out of the house, right through the grates in the bottom of the pool, getting smaller. Buddy couldn't move, but he could see Mike's diminishing form. The son he had never cared about but now longed for was screaming in terror, and for some unknown reason, he was screaming in Spanish. "Dios mio! Dios mioI" Mike wailed.

"I'm sorry," Buddy yelled to his disappearing son. "I'm sorry I couldn't get there. We could have fixed the house. We could have loved each other." His screams mixed with Mike's.

Buddy sat bolt upright. "I'm sorry ... !"

He was on his bed in Malibu, screaming at the top of his lungs, tears wet on his face. For a minute he didn't know where he was. His arms were across his chest, still clutching his invisible loaves of bread. His heart was beating fast. Suddenly, he stopped screaming and was quiet, but he could still hear Mike crying out in Spanish. He was far away. Buddy's head snapped around toward the bedroom balcony windows. He was disoriented. His conscious mind was fighting to take control, as the distant screams continued.

"Mike?" he said softly.

Then he realized he'd been in an extremely vivid dream. The suspended house, the three loaves of bread, and his dead son were all gone. Only the distant screams remained. "Dios mio/'
a w
oman's voice pleaded. He realized it was his Mexican maid, Consuelo. She was outside somewhere, out by the pool, screaming for somebody not to shoot. "No me dispare, porfavor!" she pleaded.

He got out of bed and moved uncertainly to the window. He could see Gary Iverson down by the pool. For some crazy reason, Gary had a gun in his right hand and was waving it at Consuelo, who was on her knees, begging him not to kill her. Gary pointed the gun at her head as Buddy snatched open the balcony door.

"The fuck you doing, Iverson?" he yelled.

Without hesitation, Gary spun and fired the pistol at him. The pane right next to Buddy's head shattered. Glass shards rained against his bare shoulders.

"Fuck!" Buddy yelled as he ducked for cover inside the house. Then he heard Gary screaming, and Consuelo pleading. "What the fuck?" Buddy whispered, his half-asleep mind racing to catch up with a shitload of adrenaline that had just hit his heart like a shot of ice water.

Buddy had one of the most extensive gun collections in Hollywood. He loved guns. He even had a gun dealer's license, which he got when he was in pre-production on Grunt, a Vietnam War epic he'd made at Columbia. He'd cherry-picked the prop department for the best ordnance. He had a U
. S
. M203, which was a single-shot pump grenade launcher, and five hot pineapples to go with it. He had an M60 machine gun called a "pig," and a selection of mini-lights, including the MP5, and the LMG version of the AUG machine gun. He also had a selection of Russian ordnance: the PKM-7 machine gun and the MG3. He had another whole case full of handguns: Glocks and Kochs, Brownings and Berettas. Although his war collection was mostly late-seventies stuff, he had sophisticated laser sights on a lot of them, and always kept his guns loaded.

Buddy would tell guests at his Hollywood parties that he just prayed some wired-up, celebrity-stalking fanatic would try for him
,
sounding like a ballsy hero from one of his action pictures. He would often field-strip a weapon in front of his coked-out guests, talking trash, while he tore the piece down. 'Til kill the motherfucker if I'm ever transgressed," he'd promised, his eyes shining with a deadly mixture of cocaine and testosterone.

Now, with Consuelo screaming in the yard and glass splinters from Gary's quickly aimed shot still pricking his shoulders, his ballsy resolve evaporated. His hands were shaking. His dick crawled up inside him and his asshole slammed shut.

He was at his gun cabinet, clawing for his new short-barrel Colt Commander with the state-of-the-art Sentry Laser-Lite sight and the filed-down two-ounce trigger pull. He tromboned the weapon, inadvertently ejecting the live round that had already been chambered onto the carpet at his feet. He snapped off the safety and clicked on the laser sight. A red pinpoint of light appeared on the carpet near his bare feet. He heard another gunshot, then Consuelo screamed in agony. As Buddy moved away from the cabinet, he saw that his Charter Arms Mark II target pistol was missing. Buddy was now cowering under a window, afraid to risk his life by exposing his head to look down again at the pool. Consuelo was still crying and pleading in Spanish.

He scrambled to his feet and ran downstairs. He was in one of his silk thong briefs, which Heidi Fleiss had given him last Christmas before her trial. When he had tried it on for her, she had told him the pouched thong made him look "killer." He always wore one to bed. Now it made him feel stupid and unprotected. He was in the living room, wondering if he should just run to the garage, take the Porsche, and split. Fuck Consuelo, he thought, I'm at risk here! She doesn't even have papers. It's every man for himself Then he saw movement out the plate-glass window. Gary was standing on the pool deck, his back to Buddy, screaming insanities at Consuelo, who Buddy could now see had indeed been hit in the arm, near the shoulder. She was seated on the pool deck beyond, crying, begging for her life. The dim pool lights gave eerie cinema verite ambience to the area.