P.J. Morse - Clancy Parker 02 - Exile on Slain Street (16 page)

That was how expertly Kevin organized everything. He set up an apparatus that could keep going even after his death.

Patrick materialized, with Wolf by his side. They both corralled Greg. I couldn’t hear them, but I saw mouths moving furiously. Then Patrick stalked off, saying he needed a day to think. Wolf remained.

With Patrick out of the picture, Wolf stood behind the bar while the crew set up. He looked at Greg. “What do I say?”

“Ad lib!” Greg shouted.

I could see the gears of Wolf’s mind turning as he tried to come up with something that wasn’t completely incomprehensible. “Some days, you get the goat. And other days, the goat gets you. The goat kicked Patrick’s ass last night!”

Greg made an applause gesture, and the camera caught us smiling and reacting. I looked around, and everyone seemed to be playing along. These women were actresses, good ones, and I could barely hide my disgust. Then again, they could edit that disgust to look like I was repelled by these noxious beverages, not the fact that the cast and crew, with the exception of Patrick, didn’t even pause after Kevin’s death.

Wolf’s ad-libbing must not have pleased Greg because Greg yelled, “Somebody get me a marker and some paper! Fast!” After a few minutes, Greg scrawled out some cue cards on white posterboard. “Wolf, just read this. Slowly, okay?”

Taking a deep breath, Wolf started to do the best he could with Greg’s makeshift cue cards. “While Patrick tends to himself…” flip “… I’m filling in as master mixologist…” flip “… And I’m not as good as he is at it…” flip “…But I wanna get better…” flip “…I’d like you to try my concoctions…” flip “…and whoever can drink the most wins!” flip “Anyone who can drink a full mug…” flip “… can advance to the next round…” Then he switched to the language he was happier with. “And then you conquer the goat! Yeah!”

The crew arranged the mugs, and Greg pointed at me. I walked up. “Bring it,” I said, hoping to get it over with.

Greg held up a card.

“Cocoa and tomato soup!” Wolf obediently repeated.

I grabbed the mug, took a gulp, and promptly spat it back out. I didn’t even try. I wanted to be off camera as soon as possible.

“Tut-tut. You were supposed to drink it all,” Wolf said. “Next!”

I walked off and flopped down in a pool chair. I looked up at the windows of the house and saw a red curtain flutter. Maybe Patrick was watching us.

Topaz stepped up for her turn, but she wasn’t any more interested in competing than I was. She barely took a sip of her egg yolk and grape soda. After she gagged, she sat down in the pool chair by me.

“Something made you slip by the pool, didn’t it?” I asked her. “Something that wasn’t water?”

She stared back at me for a moment, and then she touched the bottom of her black stiletto.

“It’s greasy, isn’t it?” I asked.

She didn’t say anything, but I knew she felt it. Then her eyes focused on the competition.

Andi was next, and her mug contained a mix of Major Rager and ketchup. Andi lifted her mug toward the woods. “Here’s to you!” Then she downed it.

Tina, who was after Andi, asked. “What the hell are you doing? Who are you toasting?”

While Topaz and I watched from the sidelines, another sound guy was catching the action, so Tortoise was resting his ample rear end on the edge of the table. He started snorting and laughing into the crook of his arm.

“What’s so funny?” Topaz asked. “Today has not been a funny kind of day.” For once, I could agree with her.

“Andi’s been talking to the trees,” he said. “She goes off in the woods for a while, and I followed her once. And, I swear, she was talking to this deer out there, and it’s like she’s having a conversation. That girl is not a Nobel Prize winner. But I think she’s got this date in the bag. She’ll eat anything.”

Sure enough, after other women struggled with shots of viscous mixtures, only Andi and Tina remained. Andi received a shot glass of pure BBQ sauce. Andi lifted her glass to the sky and cried out, “I’m going to make a wish!”

Tina mocked her and said, “I’m going to make a wish you don’t like!”

“Let me guess, choke on it,” I grumbled.

Topaz stared at me because she was buddies with Tina. “You got something to say to me or my friend?”

“Just that I cannot wait until the two of you turn on each other,” I said.

“And I can’t wait until you are out of here,” she replied, right as Tina spat up her shot and Andi won the challenge.

“You’ll have to drag me out,” I informed her.

Topaz didn’t have anything else to say after that.

Chapter Eighteen:
Obligations to Fulfill

W
ith the shoot mercifully wrapped up, I was ready to excuse myself to go to the bathroom, just to have a place to hide out and think. To get to the bathroom, I had to pass through the elimination zone, and I could hear sobbing coming from the other side of the spiral staircase. I walked over and saw Greg, who had lodged his head into a corner, almost as if he were trying to crawl out of this world and into a new one. He hugged himself and wept, and I felt bad for not cooperating with the morning’s shoot as much as I could have.

Despite all the crying, however, Greg had more motive than anyone — a motive far stronger than an obsession with Patrick Price. For starters, he had to clean up after all of us. When Tina vomited up her Red-Bull-and-Vodka, he was there. When Topaz started spraying graffiti on the walls of the rented mansion the first night, he was there. When the women were rejected and dragged out against their wills, he was there. When Kevin died, he was there.

And, for this, I guessed he made a pittance. His only reward was that his name would fly by in the credits. I didn’t think it was worth the trouble, no matter how good-looking the women were and how many free bottles of booze were lying around. He was too busy to drink it anyway.

I ducked into the downstairs bathroom, closed the door and pressed my ear to it. I could barely hear Greg crying, and then I heard someone else come up. Tortoise. “Hey, man, union org meeting tonight. You have got to hang on. You can’t have a nervous breakdown now.”

Greg spat out, “Kevin treated me like shit… but he’s not the kind of person who dies!”

Tortoise was trying to look on the bright side. “Dude, look at it this way. You’re in charge now!”

“Not like my paycheck is gonna get any bigger,” Greg cried. “Legal went apeshit when they found out about Fred and the limo. They’re not going to put any more money into this show after that.”

Maybe that was the real reason for Greg’s crying, I thought, especially if he killed Kevin thinking he could cash in on the show.

I heard some muffled claps and imagined Tortoise patting Greg on the back. “You just take what you learn to another show. Look, I know someone who can get you on the staff at
The Young and the Restless
… I’m going there as soon as this is over. I’m done with reality TV. Finito.”

“You call
Young and the Restless
a step up?”

“Do you want prestige or a paycheck?” Tortoise asked, sounding defensive.

“I just want this to be over…” Greg sighed. “I wanna talk to Tina. Where is she?”

“Well, you can stay here and keep on crying like a girl, but I’m getting back to work. Maybe Tina will like your little promotion. Seriously, dude, you gotta be positive.” Tortoise walked past the bathroom door and pounded on it. “Finish up in there and play nice with the others, whoever you are!”

I put my head in my hands. Greg was a mess. I also wondered why he would even want to talk to Tina. I’d seen him eyeballing her more than any of the other women, but I didn’t know he had conversations with any contestants beyond giving directions.

As I slipped out of the bathroom, I crept past Greg. He was too locked up in himself to notice. I passed the armoire, one of the exits of the secret passageway, when I ran into Patrick. I hadn’t seen Patrick since I sat with him after finding Kevin. He led me upstairs, and, once we were in his room, he grabbed me and kissed me.

I kept my eyes open because I hadn’t been in his bedroom before. It looked like it belonged to a redneck pimp, with more of the same red walls and a four-poster bed with a black velvet spread and leopard-print pillows.

I pulled back and saw that his eyes were puffy, like he’d been crying. “I don’t think that Kevin’s death was an accident. Stop the show.”

He kissed me again and said, “I want to, but I can’t. I really can’t.”

“Why not?” I sucked my lips in so he wouldn’t get anything. He aimed for my cheek instead.

“You don’t know how many people depend on this. Way more than just me. This puts bread on the table for
a lot
of people. The endorsements from Major Rager and SturdyBag alone…”

“Is it worth it to risk lives for a stupid energy drink?” I took a full step away.

“No. But… you’re not famous. When you are famous, you are responsible for more people than you ever imagined. Hell, they’ll do a third
Atomic Love
, and maybe a fourth. We have a lot of obligations to fulfill.” He shrugged.

“We? Who’s we?”

He opened his mouth like he was going to tell me something, but then he changed his mind. “I’ll tell you later. But the show’s not stopping. We have to deliver something to the network, or we don’t get renewed. We have to get renewed.”

I sat down on the bedspread. The whole room smelled like aftershave. Obviously, no one intended for Patrick to stick with the winner. I thought of what Deputy Dunlap said to me by the pool: “It. Is. Not. Real.”

While I was trying to avoid Patrick’s gaze, I noticed another armoire in the corner: another entrance to the secret passage. I asked, “What about
your
safety? If someone went after Kevin, surely they’ll…”

Patrick shook his head and sat down by me. “Have you not seen Wolf all this time? Hell, he’s probably outside the door right now. He fought in Iraq. In Baghdad. One of the camera guys was a Hells Angel. He only got a straight job after his ass got arrested. Even Fred’s got my back. He used to be a cop in Pacifica, and now he drives the limo so he can tell his kids he’s on TV.”

He never mentioned a stealth bodyguard. I wondered how much he knew about the extent of his protection. He certainly didn’t know about me. I must have still looked skeptical because he kissed me again. “I am covered — by professionals!” One more kiss. “Now I gotta let my hot dates pretend to make me dinner!” He rolled his eyes and disappeared.

Chapter Nineteen:
Bull by the Horns

T
hat morning, after Andi had her date with Patrick and more women were eliminated, the alarm rang louder than ever. Greg’s reedy voice piped over the loudspeakers. I walked past the door of the hallway closet, half expecting Kevin to reach out, grab me and brief me on the day’s events.

Since Patrick wouldn’t stop the show and Kevin wasn’t going to come back as a ghost, I thought I might try to reason with Greg. I found him going up the stairs, and I cornered him. “I need to talk to you. Kevin’s death wasn’t an accident. Someone smeared all this sticky stuff by the pool, and I couldn’t get a grip, and Topaz slid…”

Greg cut in, “We have to worry about it later.”

“No — we worry about it now!”

Greg shuddered. “Kevin wasn’t exactly healthy. He may have passed out.”

“You’re not taking this seriously!” I stamped my foot. I heard more of the crew coming, so I pulled Greg up the stairs and into the closet, closing the door behind me.

“Someone killed Kevin, and we have to stop the show,” I said.

Greg looked back at the closet door. I could tell he wanted to escape. He replied, “I want to stop the show. I really do. But we can’t. And Kevin wouldn’t have wanted it that way. You know that as well as I do.”

“I do! I agree! But this sticky stuff… I think he slipped and fell — ”

Greg cut me off. “There probably was sticky stuff. These people live like pigs!” Then he held his hand to his forehead, as if he were trying to keep it attached to his head. “Look, I think it was an accident. Kevin… he was an asshole, okay? And he probably had a coronary over something and landed in the pool. I’m about to have a coronary! I have to go!”

With that, he ran out the door, almost as if he wanted to beat me before I could say anything that would convince him to change his mind.

I was about to follow Greg out, but I looked at the drawers that served as an entrance to the house’s hidden passages. I remembered what Kevin said about the gun he hid in the passage, and I was starting to think that I would need it. I opened the door and went down the passage stairs until I reached the loose board that Kevin mentioned.

Sure enough, I could see the glint of a gun. I was ready to take it, but I would have needed to pry off the board. Alas, I could hear someone stomping around on the other side of the wall.

Then I heard Hare yell, “You have fifteen minutes to get to the vans. Let’s move it!”

I waited for a few minutes, hoping Hare would move, but I just heard more people gathering in the front hall. I had no choice but to creep back up the stairs and join the group.

Since so many women had already been eliminated, we fit in only one van this time. Even though I was hung over, I tried to watch out for our destination. We were heading South on 880 for almost an hour. Cookie rested her head on my shoulder and snored. Eventually, we wound up in Fremont, and, soon enough, I saw a huge, dazzling sign that proclaimed, “Buck Yeah!”

As the crew got busy with exterior shots, Greg herded us inside the dark bar, where a mechanical bull awaited, surrounded by fluffy blue padding. Whoever made the bull thoughtfully gave it a stuffed black head, and the bull had gleaming red eyes.

“Now this is my kind of date!” Cookie roared, throwing her arms up in the air and thrusting her hips.

Tina winced. Her sunburned skin wasn’t going to feel so good when she was trying to hang on to that bull.

Patrick, who must have arrived in the limo, leaned toward me and said, “This is just like Junior’s Barn, right? You’re gonna love this!”

My mind went blank. He must have been talking about a place in Gardenia that Muriel had forgotten. “Oh! Junior’s Barn! Man, I was wasted last time I was in there!”