Fun and Games (19 page)

Mann wasn’t exactly proud of the narrative. It was far from her best work, and there were holes galore to plug (the flight times, accident reports, rental-car damages to duplicate). But there were no easy narratives once Hardie had injected himself into the narrative so audaciously and publicly. So the narrative was rewritten to give him a supporting role. Hell, Mann was giving Hardie immortality. From now on, Charles Daniel Hardie would be mentioned in the same breath as Mark David Chapman and Robert John Bardo and Anthony Gary Silvestri. Names that would be uttered in celebrity circles for years to come; Hardie would become a spook story, a cautionary tale.

And considering the dirty laundry Hardie had left behind in Philadelphia, it was doubtful people would fall over themselves to clear his name. Trying to prove otherwise would dredge up a lot of shit that the city would prefer stay buried.

Now it was time to summon the police and make their way to the real job—the one that, until this morning, she’d thought would be the tricky one. Not the case. Compared with the miracles her small team had had to perform during the past fifteen hours, this would be relatively simple. They didn’t even have to do anything. Just sit in the van with O’Neal and let things happen.

“We good?”

“All clear,” O’Neal said.

Mann knew she couldn’t touch Hardie, even though she longed to smash his eyes back into his skull with her fists. Instead she contented herself with stooping down, lifting his chin with gloved fingers, and saying:

“See ya in Hell, tough guy.”

25

Acting is all about honesty. If you can fake that,
you’ve got it made.

—George Burns

T
HE DRIVE
into L.A. from Barstow was pretty boring.

Dusk started creeping across the land, the sun receding and fading away into a smoky gray. They didn’t say much—“Jane” staying in character, of course, and “Philip” wanting to save his energy.

He drove because Philip Kindred always drove and they wanted to make sure it was clear that it was Philip Kindred behind the wheel all the way from Barstow to L.A. But the actor behind the Philip Kindred identity was tired of driving, wanted a little rest. This was a demanding role, both mentally and physically. And the forced torture session at the gas station this morning had taken a lot out of him.

Plus, he had to admit—he was more than a little jealous of the actress playing the role of his sister/lover Jane, who basically was able to sit around just watching everything happen. What a gig.

Not that she didn’t cram as hard as he did. The job came up midday Wednesday; by that evening he was shaking hands with “Jane” and holing up in an anonymous hotel room in Flagstaff, AZ, reading through the piles of reference material and photographs and recordings about the infamous Kindreds. Plenty creepy stuff, but kind of a thrill, too—even the man playing Philip had to admit that.

Part of the cram session was getting to know the actress playing Jane and becoming comfortable with each other—familiar. The real Philip Kindred had a habit of touching Jane whenever possible, as if to claim her by physical touch or to reassure her. They kissed until it felt natural, familiar. They listened to the Kindreds’ favorite music (1960s orchestra pop and psych rock LPs that their dead parents kept around—“Crimson and Clover” especially—over and over and over), watched clips of their favorite movies (1980s slashers, 1990s teen sex comedies, 2000s torture porn), stared at the crime scene photos, and touched each other some more. Not that anyone would be quizzing either of them. But the more immersion the better.

The truly surreal thing was watching the
Truth Hunters Special: The Kindreds
as it was broadcast live Thursday night. As usual, ultimate family man Jonathan Hunter introduced the show, but he seemed even more somber than usual—almost like he knew what was coming Saturday night.

“Kind of creepy,” the man playing Philip muttered.

The woman playing Jane, staying in character, said nothing.

(See! She didn’t even have to learn any lines!)

Most of the show featured reenactments from previous installments, focusing on two sad sacks who didn’t look much like the real Philip and Jane Kindred at all. Which was really fucking insane, considering that Philip and Jane Kindred were notorious for abducting innocent victims, then forcing them to play out—reenact, if you will—scenes from their favorite horror movies. At gunpoint. So, as the man who was playing Philip watched the screen, he recognized the occult link between them all: he was watching a reenactment of another reenactment, and he himself was preparing to perpetrate still another reenactment—only one that everyone would think was real. All of it made his head hurt. He wished he could twist the cap off a cold beer.

But no booze of any kind: the Kindreds were teetotalers.

(Which just went to show you how seriously nuts these people
were,
he thought.)

And the man playing Philip would have loved to point out this strangeness to the woman playing Jane, but what could she do—nod? Shrug?

The show ended with Jonathan Hunter’s usual plea for the truth, that if you have any information that will shed some light on this case, please don’t hesitate to contact a Truth Hunter either by phone or e-mail or Facebook, and be sure to follow all
Truth Hunters
updates on Twitter…

Blah blah blah.

Jonathan Hunter supposedly disliked episodes on serial killers and their ilk; he preferred smarter, less gruesome quarry, like corporate criminals and con men. But the cable network—for all its generosity in pouring hundreds of thousands of advertising dollars into research—practically
insisted
on serials because the numbers spiked whenever the show featured a lunatic with a knife. Especially a lunatic who made out with his own deaf-mute sister and liked to reenact slasher flicks.

The man playing Philip had to admit, this one was probably the most exciting job he’d ever done working for Mann.

In fact, he still had a hard time believing he was actually
in
this line of work.

He’d come out to L.A. in his early twenties with a set of head shots, just like everybody else. Scored a part in an indie film, just like everybody else. Had visions of being discovered, landing the big role, just like everybody else. Waited for his cell to ring, just like everybody else. Worked another, totally unrelated job in the meantime, just like everybody else. Saw his early twenties slip into his midtwenties, just like everybody else.

But unlike everybody else, his cell rang one day. He was called in, given a number 2 pencil and a battery of psychological exams, then a series of interviews, then a bizarre play-acting screen test. More time went by, and then all of a sudden he was signing an inch-thick nondisclosure agreement and told to memorize a script, and then instructed to burn it and then drive to a certain street corner downtown near the Bradbury Building, where he watched someone get murdered. He followed the script when he talked to the police, and then he went home and wondered if it was all a practical joke. That is, until he went online and looked at his checking account balance.

The actor soon learned that other hopefuls had fallen into this line of work; there was a loose network of them spread throughout the world. You didn’t audition; you were simply chosen. In a way, it made him feel like a secret superstar.

And this was his biggest role yet.

Still—all of that preparation Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night (because the real Philip and Jane liked to sleep most of the day away, curled up with each other while movies and music played nonstop in the background), left him exhausted. He was eager just to get this job done—impress them, then move on. The gas station part was fun, but it was a long slog to L.A. Lots of highway and hills and sun and then chain stores and houses and more hills.

As he drove, the man playing Philip wondered what the real Philip Kindred was doing right now. The official story was that the Kindreds were still on the loose; the FBI had kept them on their Ten Most Wanted list for the past year. Unofficially, they were told not to worry about the real Kindreds, because they had been apprehended a year ago and were being confined in secret and wouldn’t be talking to anybody.

Probably safe to say that nobody told Jonathan Hunter this little bit of news.

26

I wanted a symphony of powerful men…

… of lonely women

… of thick-necked losers

… of human ships that crash in the night.

—Sylvester Stallone

T
HE ARREST
was straightforward. They eased the handcuffs on him, pulled him to his feet, shuffled him down the hallway, digital cameras capturing the scene, the cops shooing them away. He had feeling back in his legs now, and in his arms. Middle of his chest still felt dead, though. They read him Miranda. They put a hand on top of his head as they eased him into the back of the car. Slammed the door shut, ready to bring him in.

They figured out who he was, and his connection with the Philly PD, fairly quickly. They called in more uniforms when they realized they had a celebrity death. Their goal was to get Hardie away from the scene and let the tech guys start working it over.

Hardie wanted to save them the trouble and shout:
I did it.

You won’t find a shred of evidence that’ll say otherwise.

His hands around her throat.

His fist that smashed into her badly bruised eye.

His skin cells all over her body.

They’d even helpfully left his duffel bag behind, the one that used to contain the one irreplaceable thing in his life.

Now it contained Lane Madden DVDs, photos, magazine articles, and other stalkerish paraphernalia.

Used to work with the Philly police or not… Hardie did it, and he was going down for it.

Hardie wondered how soon they’d let Deke know, if they’d try to contact him on the plane. Cell phones didn’t (allegedly) work up there, but many airlines had Internet. Hardie’s name was in the system, and he couldn’t imagine Deke wouldn’t have alerts in place in case anything went wrong with Charlie or his family in hiding. Deke would probably head right to the station house, ask for time alone with Hardie. Would Deke believe him? No idea. Even if Deke did, who would he go looking for? Where would he start?

And what did it matter, anyway? Their mission was accomplished. Delayed maybe. But Lane Madden still ended up dead, and the truth along with her. The truth about what had really happened to poor little Kevin Hunter.

In her last moments, she’d begged him, wordlessly pleading with him:

Save me.

Hardie couldn’t get rid of the image of her racked with pain, struggling to speak:

Save me.

The more he thought about it,
me
wasn’t right. Her lips hadn’t come together to form an
m.
Her tongue had darted out first, and a moment later, she ended the word with an
m.

She wasn’t saying

Save me.

Lane was saying

Save
them.

All it once it came to Hardie, his lizard brain finally snapping the last piece into place. Why hadn’t he realized it earlier, after Lane had confessed her sins?

As Deke had put it:

These shadowy agents or whatever want the actress gone before she tells the truth, right? Hell, if they’re already going through all this trouble, why not just bump off the Hunters, too? They’re the ones pushing for the answers. They could even do it on live TV.

The address in the GPS. 11804 Bloomfield. The one that Lane quickly dismissed from the screen.

11804 Bloomfield, Studio City, CA.

Oh fuck.

They weren’t done yet.

O’Neal didn’t say it out loud, but he couldn’t keep the thought from rattling around in his fuzzy, sleep-deprived mind.

They shouldn’t be doing this.

Seriously, it should be some other unit. He knew what Mann was thinking: turning this assignment over to another production team midstream was a sign of weakness. And you never showed weakness to your employers, because suddenly they’d lose your number and you’d never receive another assignment.

There were other directors out there—some legends, others rising stars. They were all known only by their monosyllabic code names, inspired by Hollywood directors. O’Neal had worked for “Fritz” (after Lang) as well as “Ray” (after Nicholas). He’d heard rumors of a “Hitch” as well as a “Brian” (after De Palma). Some Guild wags joked that Brian was actually the
real
Brian De Palma, moonlighting between thrillers. Meanwhile, some directors specialized. There was a “Howard” who was an expert on faking plane crashes, from Cessnas to 747s; an “Oliver” who worked on assassinations.

Deputy directors like O’Neal typically took on the names of famous actors, dead or alive. O’Neal took his name from Ryan; in the past he’d worked with an Eli (Wallach), a Van (Hefflin), a Sam (uel L. Jackson), a Myrna (Loy), a Bob (Culp).

The code names made it easy to keep Guild members straight. The code names also provided a nice protective layer of absurdity. Even if you were to stumble upon their plans, what were you going to say? Some dudes named “Oliver” and “Kevin” were plotting to assassinate a Rwandan president?

Mann’s code name, however, was both clever and a big fuck-you to the boys’ club that was the Guild. She chose it in honor of Anthony Mann, western and film-noir director extraordinaire, and claimed to be a huge fan of his work. But O’Neal knew it was just her way of saying:

Oh, I’ll show you who’s the fucking Mann.

No doubt about it, Mann was extremely talented. She worked with efficiency and innovation and with small, agile units. Not only did she smash through the glass ceiling of their peculiar little business, but she did it without leaving a fingerprint.

Fact remained, though: they were all injured and tired and punchy and twitchy and in no condition to be conducting an operation like this. But Mann didn’t give a shit. She didn’t care how tired you were or what your plans might be or what day it was. When Mann had a production and tapped you, you dropped everything and hung in there with her until it was complete.

So here they were.

Securing the perimeter in the lovely San Fernando Valley in a brand-new white van, new communications gear. And boy, it must have galled Mann to break the new gear out of storage.

Awaiting the arrival of a new A.D.—henceforth to be known as A.D.2. (Underlings never received cool code names, just job descriptions.)

Trying to stay awake.

Waiting for eight p.m.

Which apparently… was when everything was going to happen.

Mann was keeping the details of this mission extremely close to her chest. All O’Neal knew was that there were two other teams out there; one offensive, one defensive, and O’Neal’s job was to observe and block communications as needed. Police squawks, cell-phone calls, people with digital cameras, whatever. Complete blackout, on demand. Now he was in the van, awaiting her command.

Hardie needed to get out of this police car immediately.

But he had nothing.

No shirt, no shoelaces, no socks, no underwear, no weapons of any kind. Nothing on his body but a pair of bloody, ripped, dirty jeans on his legs, and a pair of his own shoes—minus the laces—on his feet.

He was handcuffed and sitting inside a suspect-transport enclosure, which was locked and moving through the streets of L.A. on the way to the North Hollywood station.

Let’s face it: there was nothing he could do.

He eased back into the seat and closed his eyes when he felt it dig into his ass cheek. Took him a minute, but he remembered.

The tiny spring-loaded plastic vial.

The one he’d plucked from the white death van. Hardie had figured if they were forced into a corner again, he’d spray that shit all around and play the game of See Who Wakes Up First. Use their own poison against them. He’d forgotten about it, though—not that it would have done any good back in the hotel room, as they pretty much pounced the moment he stepped out of the bathroom.

Now, though. In an enclosed space…

The barrier between the backseat and the front was a hard layer of bulletproof plastic, with a group of air holes the size of quarters in the middle.

Hardie remembered what Topless had said about the stuff in the vial. The dose was designed to kill a man in two stages—first knock him out, then convince his heart to stop beating for a short while. If he sprayed this stuff in the car, all three of them would die. Hardie first. That wouldn’t do any good.

And if he waited until he was in an interrogation room, same deal. And even if he lived, there was no way he could fight his way out of a station house. Nor would he want to, because then he’d be hurting cops.

So it was now or never. While they were still on the street, where he maybe had a chance at controlling things.

Otherwise, it was like letting the Hunters just die.

God knows if he thought there was even a chance they’d believe him, Hardie’d tell them everything. Much better to have a SWAT team descend on the house and deal with the situation. But Hardie knew he was in the worst position possible—the guy absolutely nobody would believe.

He used his fingers to slide the vial out of his back pocket.

The way it worked seemed clear enough. A simple pump on one end would send the poison mist shooting out on the opposite end. But how was he supposed to lift it to the holes in the plastic barrier?

Ungracefully, he supposed.

Hardie started turning around in the back and the cop in the passenger seat immediately noticed and warned him to sit the fuck down now. Hardie ignored him and focused on the strange task of kneeling on the seat, then raising his cuffed hands—along with his ass—to the barrier. Again the passenger cop screamed, asking what the fuck he thought he was doing, and the driver joined in and began braking the vehicle—which was good news, all things considered. Hardie felt the edges of one of the air holes with the tips of his fingers and quickly put the vial through, took a deep breath, and closed his mouth and eyes and pushed it.

PSSSSSSSST

The effect was immediate. The car, with an unconscious driver slumped over its wheel, lurched to the right and came to a bone-rattling stop on the side of a parked car. Hardie’s cuffed hands were crushed by his own ass against the barrier. The vial slid out of his hands. He continued to hold his breath.

Come on come on come on…

Falling forward, Hardie led with his right shoulder and landed on his side. He flipped around and smashed against the window with both feet. First time nothing. Second time nothing. Third time was a charm.

KRESSSSHHHHH

The rest Hardie accomplished by rote, walking himself through his improvised plan step by step. It was the only way to do it. Skip to the end and realize how impossible this all seemed, and you might just lose hope.

So go ahead, Charlie.

Kick away the jagged glass from the frame. Sit up. Lunge yourself through the opening. Land on your shoulders. Breathe. You’re outside. You can open your mouth now. Suck in that air. Stand up. Come on, stand up. Get to that driver’s-side door. Turn around. Grab the handle with your fingers. Open it. Really yank it open. Cops never lock their doors because they have to get out quickly at any given moment, and the perps are always locked up in the back, so what does it matter? Open the door and let the driver come tumbling out, because many cops don’t wear their seat belts, either.

He’s down on the ground now. Good. Take the keys from his belt and uncuff yourself. You’re not going to do anybody any good with hands behind your back. Unsnap. Jam the key in. Twist. You’re doing fine, doing fine… and look, you’re free.

Now throw away the cuffs and give this poor bastard his life back. Don’t worry about 911. They’ll come soon enough, with all these bystanders with cell phones. Focus on the CPR. Chest compressions…

Survival rates for people experiencing cardiac arrest outside of in a hospital: eight percent.

Hardie knew that the mouth-to-mouth part wasn’t key. An EMT had told him so over a beer once, many moons ago: it was the chest compressions, stupid. When somebody’s heart stops, they still have oxygen in their blood. If you can get their pumper a-pumping again, the oxygenated blood will begin to circulate. Simple as that. In fact, blowing into someone’s mouth can be a bad thing, the EMT explained. You see a person drop, you tend to freak out. Freaking out increases your level of carbon dioxide. So you end up blowing carbon dioxide down their throat—when what they really need is oxygen.

The EMT shared a personal tip with Hardie: when compressing someone’s chest, play the Bee Gees’ “You Should Be Dancing” in your head. That keeps you pumping at one hundred beats per minute.

At the time, Hardie, being a wiseass, had asked: Wouldn’t “Stayin’ Alive” be more appropriate?

The EMT responded: “So fucking cliché, man.”

You should be dancing.

Yeah…

The cop started coughing and sputtering and waving his arms around, wondering what the fuck was going on. Hardie scrambled up, his body screaming at him, and made his way to the other cop. Yanked him out of the passenger seat, started in with the compressions.
Come on, come on,
Hardie thought, all the while noticing that they were about the same age, about the same build.