Westlake, Donald E - Novel 50 (10 page)

           
Having two salaries now, blessed
with growing reputations, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Pine could afford, in fact needed,
a larger house, a more prestigious location, better suited to greeting friends
and the press. This house, until recently owned by a television star named Holt
who'd committed suicide when his series was canceled, sprawled on three levels,
a white blob cunningly worked into a fold of canyon up near Mulhol- land Drive.
Though the view was of the Valley, the approach was from the
Los Angeles
side, and the area code was 213, not (gulp)
818.

 
          
The
box hooked to the visor of Jack's rented BMW operated the gate at the end of
the cul-de-sac off Mulhol- land, where their driveway began. He drove in, the
gate swinging sidearm shut behind him, and steered around the carefully jungly
plantings to the sudden blacktop puddle where the house began; three-car
attached garage on the right, entrance and main living room straight ahead.

 
          
Gathering
up his same old two pieces of luggage—the battered round, soft traveling bag
and the well-worn soft suit-carrier—Jack unlocked his way into the house. He
crossed the large formal living room with its large formal view of the Valley
nestling its large blanket of dirty gray haze, and went down the stairs to
level two, with its more informal family room and bedrooms all opening onto the
large free-form pool, which sparkled and gleamed below the sightline of the
formal view above. Coming into the large comfortable family room with its
conversation pit and its walls graced with rented original oil paintings, Jack
looked around with pride of ownership and the happiness of contentment. This
was his; his and Marcia's.

 
          
The
television set was on, showing
Bringing
Up
Baby.
A large book of the paintings of Hopper lay on
the broad glass coffee table, open to "Nighthawks." Beside the book
were a half-full coffee cup and a half-eaten sandwich. Jack looked at all these
things, his smile quizzical, then dropped his luggage and crossed the room to
feel the coffee cup. It was warm.

 
          
His
smile broadening, Jack tiptoed across the room and opened the hall door.
Tiptoeing past the rented framed etchings, he couldn't help a conspiratorial
chuckle.

 
          
The
master bedroom door was at the end, on the right. It was closed. Jack reached
it, closed his hand around the doorknob, hesitated once more, grinning, and
then leaped through the doorway, yelling, "Surprise!"

 
          
Buddy
reared up in the bed, looking over his shoulder in amazement and shock. Beneath
him, Marcia writhed. "Not
noowww!”
she wailed. "I'm coming!"

 
          
Jack
stood in the bedroom where his momentum had left him. Turned to stone, he
stared into Buddy's eyes. He could neither speak nor move.

 
          
Buddy
was horribly embarrassed, achingly aware of the social awkwardness of the
situation in which they all found themselves. But he was quite obviously also
aware of the woman still desperately thrashing away beneath him. He offered
Jack a ghastly smile, saying, "Give us a minute, will you, Dad, uh, just a
minute, we'll . . .”

 
          
An
electric jolt shot through Jack's body, slamming him back into life. Spinning
about, he flung himself from the room, the door banging behind him with a sound
like a shot. "Nice to see you, Dad, uh . . ." Buddy called after him,
in despairing camaraderie.

 
          
"Oh,
there
it is," Marcia gasped, her
hands clutching his shoulder blades. "Oh, there it is, oh, there it is,
oh, there it is."

           
"There it is, all right,"
Buddy muttered, broody.

 
          
Marcia's
breathing slowed, her arms relaxed, she raised her head beside Buddy's and
looked toward the door. Lank hair plastered to her skin framed her face. Still
panting a bit, beginning to look worried, she said, "Was that Jack?"

 
          
"Mmmmmm,"
Buddy said, meaning
yes.

 
          
From
far away came the sound of a car engine roaring, the accelerator pressed
ridiculously to the floor. Then there was the grinding sound of some sort of
crash, a tiny pause, and once again that roaring sound, this time receding to
silence.

 
          
"What
was that?" said Marcia.

 
          
"Jack's
going," Buddy said.

 
 
          
The
interviewer glares at me in prissy disapproval. “There you go again/' he says.
“You didn't
see
that part. You were
driving away.''

 
          
“With
a broken heart," I say.
“Plus two broken headlights and
a cracked radiator.
But one senses the truth of such scenes, doesn't
one? One doesn't have to be
present
at every fucking instance of an emotional scene to sense the reality when one
fucking well hears it,
does
one?”

 
          
“Okay,
okay," he says, patting the air at me. “Take it easy, Mr. Pine. It's your
story.”

 
          
“My
wife and my best friend," I say, with my best brokenhearted chuckle. “The
oldest story in the world, am I right?"

 
          
“Second
oldest, I think," he says, nit-picking again. “Old, though," I say,
too weary to fight.
“Very old.
Buddy came to see me in
Mexico
.”

 
          
The
hot Mexican sun beat down on an old Mexican village: adobe walls, brown earth
street,
flat
bleaching light. Jack, dressed in dirty
black pants, black leather jacket, and white shirt buttoned to the collar,
stalked cautiously along next to the wall, a six-inch bowie knife held at the
ready in his hand, out in front of him, swaying like a snake to left and right.
All at once a small Mexican boy, barefoot, in ragged shirt and pants, came
whistling around the corner into Jack's path, paying attention to nothing.
Seeing the knife, seeing Jack, he let out a bloodcurdling shriek and, as Jack
lunged uselessly at him with the knife, the boy scrambled back around the
corner and out of sight. Jack straightened, lowering the knife, and leaned his
free hand wearily against the wall.

 
          
“Okay,
Jack,”
came
the amplified voice of the director.
“Very nice.
But the kid came in a little late.”

 
          
The
kid came back around the corner of the false wall in this false mockup of a
corner of a Mexican town out of
Juarez
,
and frowned irritably in the direction of
the director and all the technicians and the black hulks of the machines,
haloed by the powerful lights assisting the sun. Out of character, it could be
seen that the kid was a kid, but not a Mexican. With the impatience of the
professional surrounded by amateurs, he said, “Who the heck’s supposed to cue
me around here? I finally went when I saw the guy’s shadow.’’

 
          
The
guy—that is, Jack—took no part in the ensuing discussion. He seemed muted,
deadened. After a minute, when not given any further directions, he simply
turned away on his own, knife hand dangling at his side, and plodded back to
his starting position. As he did so, he glanced without interest toward the
crew and equipment and stopped dead.

 
          
Buddy.
In among it all, the camera, boom, sound equipment, lighting, grips,
technicians, makeup man, script girl, stills photographer, visitors to the set,
the whole shifting population of the village that lives just behind the camera,
down there in the midst of them all stood Buddy. Jack’s vision contracted; it
was as though his sight had irised into a tight circle surrounded by black the
way they used to point at information in silent movies. There was Buddy, in the
circle of the iris, and all the rest of the world was black.

 
          
A
tiny, tentative, sheepish, hesitant smile touched Buddy's lips. A tiny,
tentative, sheepish little wave of his hand barely reached as high as his
waist.

 
          
Jack
gazed across the dusty tan intervening space. People in the other world were
talking, moving around, living their lives; he was aware of none of it. He saw
only Buddy. The left side of his upper lip lifted, curling back, showing a
moist glint of tooth. Slowly, deep in his throat, a snarl began. It flowed from
his mouth, growing, louder. All at once, Jack raised the bowie knife above his
head,
bellowed
like an enraged bull,
and leaped across that intervening space directly at his oldest friend in
all the
world.

 
          
People
in that other world screamed and fled. Buddy, in this world, stared in horror
at that knife but stayed rooted to the spot. Jack launched himself at Buddy
like a tiger, the knife flashing in the sun, slashing down across Buddy's
chest.

 
          
Buddy
screamed. He recoiled, falling back a step, putting up his hands in a vain
attempt to defend himself. Jack slashed with the knife, his arm raising and
lowering, again and again, the blade gleaming and gleaming, until finally Buddy
managed to push him away and back out of range, staggering, shocked, outraged.
"Ow!" Buddy cried. "That hurts!"

 
          
Jack,
out of breath, stood spraddle-legged in the dust where Buddy had pushed him,
the knife hanging from his hand at his side. Face dulled again, he gazed
bleakly at Buddy and panted like a dog on a summer day.

 
          
Meanwhile,
Buddy was realizing he hadn't been cut. Looking down at himself, seeing no
blood, seeing his clothes intact and not cut to ribbons, he stared in wonder
and then pointed at the knife, saying, "What
is
that?"

 
          
A
number of crew members, finally getting over their first shock, had now run
forward to grasp the unresisting Jack by the arms and shoulders and waist. One
of these men
unbent
Jack's unprotesting fingers and
removed the knife from his grip. Holding it up, showing it to Buddy, he bent
the blade back and forth, showing its resilience. "Rubber," he said.

 
          
"Well,
it
hurts,"
Buddy said, no longer
frightened, beginning to be both embarrassed and aggrieved. Rubbing his arms
and chest, he said, "I'm gonna be all over bruises."

 
          
The
crew members turned the now-catatonic Jack and began to lead him away toward
his dressing trailer. Buddy looked up, saw Jack leaving, and put out his hand,
calling,
"
Stop! Wait! Let him go."

 
          
The
group of men holding Jack stopped and turned around so Jack was facing Buddy
again, but they didn’t let him go. Stepping forward, speaking loudly enough for
everyone present to hear him, Buddy said, "It's all right, it really is. I
deserved that. I won't tell you what I did to this fine man, but I deserved
even
more
than a rubber knife. I
destroyed the finest friendship a man ever had."

           
Slowly Jack lifted his head. Slowly
his eyes focused on Buddy, seeing him through a haze of despair. Slowly Buddy's
words made their way into his brain.

 
          
Buddy
stepped forward, closer to his old friend. The group holding Jack released him
and faded away. Speaking more softly, Buddy said, "Nobody's ever had a
finer friend than I had in Jack Pine."

 
          
Buddy's
eyes locked on Jack's. Jack's eyes locked on Buddy's. Buddy said, with simple
intensity, "I would have laid down my life for you, Dad, and I know you
would have done the same for me."

 
          
Over
behind the sound equipment, a fella with a guitar began softly to play a
lonesome tune. With unembellished frankness, Buddy said, "We go back a
long ways together, Jack Pine, a long ways.
To the very
beginning."

 
          
Jack
raised his head, sunlight refracting from the despair in his eyes. Speaking
from a throat as dry and dusty as the ground they stood on, he said, "That
doesn't matter anymore, Buddy. Nothing matters anymore, not what anybody knows,
not what anybody did. None of it matters, Buddy."

 
          
"You're
right, Jack Pine," Buddy said. "In one careless, thoughtless moment
of selfishness, I threw it all away. I didn't deserve your friendship, Jack
Pine. I never did."

 
          
His
passion spent, wanting nothing but to be alone in his trailer with his personal
silence and darkness, Jack shook his head and made a vague gesture and said,
"Oh, sure you did, Buddy. You deserved my friendship, sure you did.
Lots of times."

 
          
"Never,
Jack Pine," Buddy said.
"Never."

 
          
Jack
Pine was an actor. How could he help but get caught up in the mood of the
scene? How could he help but begin to
feel
the emotion of the scene? How could he help but say, "You know what I owe
you, Buddy Pal.
You
know, more than
anyone else. I owe you my life, Buddy Pal. I owe you everything I have. You
saved me back there when . . ."

 
          
screams, screaming, engine roars, flashing
lights in red and white reflecting from the bumper chrome, slicking on the
heaving trunk of the car, madness, danger, movement, peril, speed . . .

           
“Nnn-a/z/z/z-ah!"

 
          
“Jack Pine!"

 
          
“Buddy Pal!
Buddy Pal!"
Back
from terror, Jack stared in dread at his oldest friend. “You
know,
Buddy Pal!" he cried. “I owe
you
everything
. Do you know what I
mean?"

 
          
“But
not
that,
Jack," Buddy insisted,
shaking his head. “Not to take
that
from you, Jack Pine. What I did in your bed was unforgivable, I know it was. I
know you can never forgive me, and I know I don't deserve to be forgiven."

 
          
“But
I
do
forgive you, Buddy," Jack
said, raising hands that trembled.

 
          
“You
can't, Jack, you
cant
”

 
          
“I
can, Buddy," Jack said, a crazed and holy smile forming on his lips. “I
can, and I do, and I will, and you can't stop me. I forgive you!"

 
          
“Jack!
Jack!"

 
          
“I
forgive you, Buddy Pal! I forgive you!"

 
          
“Oh,
Jack! Jack!"

 
          
Jack
pulled Buddy into his arms. Tightly they
embraced,
eyes squeezed shut, faces buried in each other's shoulders. A collective sigh
rose from the semicircle of assembled spectators. Strong men were seen to wipe
away a tear. Women were seen thoughtfully to lick a lip. The guitar music
flowed
its mournful message. Then the applause started,
slight at first, but growing, mingling with the guitar.

 
          
Jack
and Buddy reared back so they could see each other, but still held tightly to
each other's arms. Both men were crying for happiness. The applause continued,
and beneath it Buddy said, his voice throbbing with sincerity, “But the most
important person to forgive, Jack Pine, is your little Marcia."

 
          
Weeping,
tears and makeup commingling on his face, Jack shook his head. “Buddy,
Buddy," he said, “you don't know what you're asking."

 
          
“She
needs you, Jack Pine," Buddy told him. “Your little Marcia needs
you."

 
          
"Oh,
no, she doesn't," Jack said, his voice hardening.

           
"Oh, yes, she does,"
Buddy said. "She's going to have your baby."

           
I wipe away a tear. Then I taste it.
It tastes like the sea. I think I like the sea better than I like swimming
pools. I think I don't like swimming pools the way I used to. I smile sadly—I
feel myself doing it, smiling sadly—I smile sadly at the interviewer and I say,
"That was the last time Buddy and I ever fought about anything."

 
          
He
seems surprised. As though challenging me, he says, "The last time?"

 
          
But
it's the truth, the simple truth. All truth is simple. "The last
time," I say.

 
          
"And
Marcia Callahan was pregnant with your first child at that time?"

 
          
Less simple.
"The blood test was inconclusive," I
say. "But when Buddy brought me the news, what could I do? I went back to
the nasty bitch. And you know the first thing I said to her?"

 
          
"What
was that?"