Hide & Seek - James Patterson [62]
Why the hell should he want to die?
Primrose was fucking soaring at the box office. The absurd movie had made it to number one, and had stayed there for weeks. Even more absurd, he was being touted as the next Eastwood, or Harrison Ford. What a goddamn idiocy. Hollywood made him ill with its amateurish reading of public tastes.
In a single week, he'd gotten over a hundred loathsome scripts to read. He'd finally selected another best-seller, a powerful psychological thriller called Wind-chimes. He'd negotiated a contract for four million up front.
Principal shooting was set to start that very day with the famed British director Tony Scott. It was going to be another hit movie, everyone was sure of it. It had all the “ingredients.”
Well, Will was sure it was going to be another piece of commercial garbage. He knew what was good, and what wasn't. He knew when he was fooling the world, and that it would catch up with him sooner or later.
He couldn't stand the fucking reviews—because they were true, his critics were right. He was dog shit on a stick.
He couldn't stand it anymore.
He couldn't bear being Will Shepherd: the barely living legend, the ex-football great, “the incredible Hunk,” “Mr. Maggie Bradford.”
As he entered New York City and saw the road signs for Broadway and 242d Street, Will floored it and took the convertible to over a hundred again.
Traffic was thick, and he swerved from lane to lane as other drivers angrily honked their horns.
I don't want to be Will Shepherd anymore, he was thinking as he maneuvered the car with one hand, then one finger, then look, ma, no hands.
I don't want to live like this.
I can't.
Was that what my father was thinking when he first went underwater?
CHAPTER 72
HE WAS GOING underwater. Down, down, down. The water was cool and dark. It wasn't so bad to drown.
It was as “Will Shepherd” that he began the early evening at the Red Lion Inn in Greenwich Village. As Shepherd he consumed seven Scotches, neat; as Shepherd he was now playing out, for an audience of mostly inebriated admirers, his greatest triumph in a Manchester United uniform.
Since he was buying drinks all around, the audience was with him, hanging on every word.
“Will, Will,” one of them chanted. An Englishman. A genuine fan, probably.
“The Blond Arrow!” Will shouted back, his voice thick with irony that none of them seemed to appreciate.
“The Blond Bum,” another voice called out from the back of the barroom crowd.
Will stopped in the middle of his story. It was just some punk wearing black leather and black jeans, acting the macho man. He glared at the asshole, thinking Eurotrash, thinking let's get it on.
The punk made his way through the crowd. There were two friends with him. Will saw tattoos on their arms: falcons or eagles.
“A stinking bum,” the punk repeated, now facing Will as the spectators stepped back. His accent sounded German.
“A pansy,” one of the friends added. “A British fag.” Definitely German.
Anger, which had struggled for days to escape, now roared from Will's mouth. A string of curses exploded.
The Euro-trash punk stepped forward, beckoning to Will. “Come get me, bum,” he said. “Come get me, you has-been.”
Where he got the chain he held, Will couldn't imagine. It really didn't matter. He charged the German anyway.
The Blond Arrow charged blindly. He wanted a fight; and fight would do.
He got out of the Red Lion with only cuts and bruises. Nothing important. Nothing fatal.
He remembered that he was supposed to be on a movie set. Well, fuck that. This was a better psychological thriller anyway.
Now came a series of white explosions in the shadows of an abandoned storage warehouse just off Hudson Street. A gang was beating up on him; he didn't know why. Could it have been something I said, mates? He was aware only of the intense pain of their kicks—to the head, to the stomach and groin, to the ribs—of the relentless agony each hard blow produced in his brain. Punishment, he thought as he was falling to the pavement.
Fair and just punishment for