Fun and Games - Duane Swierczynski [74]
Yet he couldn’t leave the edge of the bed.
If he stood up and walked out the door, maybe all of this would disappear and he’d wake up on a leather couch with a bottle resting in his crotch and he’d realize this was all a dream. And as awful as things had been, he wasn’t ready to accept all of this as a dream. Not yet. Not until he figured it out.
Behind the door, a door slid open, then slid shut. She was inside the shower now.
It was as if he were a corpse slowly coming back to life. Blood surging through veins that he’d long thought withered away. Brain cells in the animal part of his mind suddenly shocking themselves back to life. Charlie Hardie Frankenstein. It’s alive!
Hardie stood up suddenly and walked to the bathroom door. Listened to the water hiss from the shower fixture. He should have gone for that beer. Instead, he picked up the room phone and dialed a number collect.
It was three hours later in Philadelphia—Eastern Time Zone. Deacon “Deke” Clark was turning over some carne asada on his backyard grill, nursing his second Dogfish Head Pale Ale, when his cell phone buzzed. Never failed. He didn’t recognize the area code either.
“Deke, it’s me. Charlie.”
“Hey. How ya doing, Hardie.”
Deke knew how terse he sounded. He just wasn’t a phone person.
“I’m kind of fucked, Deke, to tell you the truth. You don’t think you could get out here sometime tonight, do you?”
“Where’s here?”
“Los Angeles.”
Deke paused, tongs in hand, smoke rising, coals burning deep hot. “What’s going on, Hardie?”
Hardie started speaking quickly, about a house-sitting gig and finding a squatter inside—then realizing there were people outside the house trying to kill the squatter, and how they barely escaped with their lives. We shouldn’t have escaped, Hardie said. It was a ridiculous miracle that we did. And somehow, it seemed to be related to a three-year-old hit-and-run case in Studio City. A kid named Kevin Hunter was the victim.
“You’re not putting me on, are you?”
“Would I really make this up?”
“You seriously telling me this is about The Truth Hunters people?”
“What’s that?”
“Oh, right. You’ve unplugged yourself from the modern world. So you have no idea that there’s this true-crime reality show called The Truth Hunters, created and produced by the father of Kevin Hunter, who was killed in a hit-and-run three years ago.”
Sure, he’d heard about it. Just this afternoon, from Lane herself.
“She told me about it.”
“And you’re saying this is part of it? The actress was involved?”
“Yeah.”
“Got any evidence?”
“Not a shred. But then, that’s what these Accident People do. Cover up all traces.”
Deke knew how much Hardie drank. What he did with his life. How he’d removed himself from everybody and everything. This was all a lot to swallow in one phone conversation.
“So, let’s make sure I have this right: 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.”
“I know how this sounds, Deke. About ten hours ago, I wouldn’t have believed me either. But this is real.”
There was a painfully long pause as Deke looked at his sizzling meat and tried to figure out the best move.
“Look, Hardie, how about I send somebody? A good man I know lives in West Hollywood, works at Wilshire. He can help you sort this out. And if the actress is in some kind of real trouble, and not drugged out of her mind, he’ll give her protection and get an investigation started. His name’s Steve—”
“No. Only you, Deke. You’re the only person in this world I trust, and right now that means everything. They’re smart, they’re connected, and it’s only a matter of time before they find us again.”
“You sound a little