"Killing's too good for that fuck," Mitch, the teen-age tackle, bragged to his three friends at the burger stand. "What that prick needs is torture."
It was just around the time that Lisa was first arriving at Royalties, and the friends nodded sympathetically. They knew Mitch was full of shit. He had always been able to talk the talk, but he never had the balls to walk the walk -- but why call him on it now?
He had gone through a mega-embarrassment. All the girls and the rest of the team had abandoned him, and he couldn't show his face at the Noho anymore. Even his father refused to believe his story. If Mitch had been a little rough with Lisa that night up at Mulholland, it was still no reason for her to call him a rapist on national TV.
In its most simple terms, Mitch needed a friend. So if the three of them had to leave the Noho and miss some of the best summer gossip to babysit their pal and act supportive about his bullshit threats, it was the least they could do.
"Fuckin' A," said the kicker.
"You go get that prick," responded the tackle.
"That's what I would do," chimed the second-string safety. "I'd be at that fuckin' Royalties joint right now shooting up the place."
In their way, they meant well, and they had no way of knowing that they were actually encouraging him to get off his ass and do something horrible.
Cameron Docks fired six shots at the head of his nemesis. He had been taught to aim for the body, but he wanted to decimate Rockman's boyishly handsome face as well.
He pressed the button next to him as the paper target mechanically slid towards him. It was a little better than the last five sets of rounds he had fired, but still less than impressive. One of the six shots missed the silhouette's head completely, two barely grazed the cheek, and only three were definite kills.
It had not been his intention to take target practice that night. He had been fully prepared to follow Dr. Joe's instructions and stay home, while his very fragile daughter hung out with cheerleaders and football players. But he couldn't do it, so he drove to the Noho and parked outside. He only wanted to see that she was all right.
But he couldn't spot her among all the other kids through the glass walls. He searched for her as long as he could stand it before going inside and asking around.
None of the kids would tell him anything at first, but it wasn't very difficult for the experienced father to trick one of the young pom-pom broads into informing him where Lisa had gone, and whom she was planning to meet.
Every instinct in his body screamed at him to go to Royalties and save his daughter from the immoral actor, but he allowed logic and psychiatry to prevail.
"Give her her space," Dr. Joe had told him. "In seven months she'll be eighteen. If you don't build her trust now, she won't take your advice later."
So he went to shoot some rounds just to blow off steam and take his mind off his daughter's plight. It had never been his intention to pretend that Robby was the silhouetted figure on the paper target -- it just kind of happened.
The next round was as accurate as he had ever been, so he was almost pleased with himself. Three black holes in a cluster right between the eyes, one just a little higher in the center of the forehead, two just a little lower in the mouth and nose.
But it didn't satisfy. He was more obsessed with Robby now than he had been all day. So he left the gun club to go for a drive and take his mind off things.
He did not intend to go anywhere specifically.
As far as Cheyenne Ellis was concerned, life had never been better. She was living in a beautiful little beach house, she had an important part in a real movie, and people were responding to her performance in a way that exceeded her wildest dreams. The fact that she continued to feel that she was doing a horrible job was irrelevant -- she had learned long ago that what others think of you is far more important than what you think of yourself. As long as they kept giving her these chances, she knew she'd "get it" eventually -- she simply had to hang in there and stop letting Robby intimidate her.
The irony was that everyone kept telling her Robby was bringing her "up," and that her scenes with him were far superior to the scenes she had shot with Axel. (There was even talk of bringing in a new writer to add scenes between her and Robby because she was just that good.) It was hard for her to believe, but the information came from so many different sources she simply had to accept it. Savannah had told her, as had Robby, and even Axel had humbly admitted it.
Ciggy, in what had to be the most unique apology she had ever heard, praised the shit out of her for her brilliant performance, then begged her forgiveness for being so cruel to her earlier that day. He explained that it was simply his way of getting her to the same exciting emotional place where she had been when Robby had verbally abused her -- all in an attempt to get her Mammoth representation.
And it worked! Gloria wanted to represent the young actress and promised to base Cheyenne's entire career strategy on pairing her with actors of Robby's caliber.
How great was that? After having faced one humiliating rejection after another from smaller agencies -- the kind Ciggy referred to as "fly-by-night" -- Mammoth itself was willing to take her on. Part of her wanted to call back the bastards who had told her to stick to "temping" and let them know about the giant mistake they had made. Instead, she decided to never speak to them at all. One day they'd be phoning to cast their clients in a "Cheyenne Ellis" picture, and she wouldn't even take their calls.
Cheyenne had hated Ciggy much of that afternoon, but after such a phenomenal outcome, how could she not forgive him? He had risked all her affection to help her, and in the end he was right as usual. She was more fond of him now than ever!
In fact, the only reason Cheyenne hadn't agreed to Gloria's offer the second she made it was that Ciggy had advised her against it.
"Don't look so desperate, kiddo," he had advised. "I pushed her into loving you, so it's okay for me to look desperate on your behalf. You gotta make her think you got other offers -- as if Mammoth is MY choice, not yours. Make her seduce you a little."
Cheyenne didn't enjoy playing such games, but she understood that Ciggy knew best. So she told Gloria she had to think about it, then bugged her all day solely to make sure that her soon-to-be agent would put in the time on her behalf.
But even better than all that, she had discovered that Ciggy was going to propose to her.
She found out by accident. While searching for her car keys one day, she came across a black velvet Tiffany box that contained a three-karat emerald-cut diamond ring. She immediately assumed it was for someone else. All she wanted to know was who.
She used an old prostitute ploy that she had learned early in her hooking career. The other girls had pointed out that many men, women too actually, talk in their sleep. Usually it's just garbled nonsense, but they can generally answer simple, pointed questions and have no recollection of the conversation in the morning. With such little schemes, the experienced whores pointed out, one can easily ascertain where the client had hidden the bulk of his cash or any other expensive trinkets that were worth stealing.
Cheyenne never used the ploy for theft. She could have. When she first tried it, she would ask her clients where they hid their valuables or what the combination numbers were to their safes. For the most part, she had gotten all the information she asked for, but she could never take advantage of the poor, pathetic clients. Man or woman, married or single, they only called her up because they were sad or lonely. Cheyenne never had the heart to take them for more than her inflated call-girl fee plus tip.
But she often used the little ploy to pass the time. She had grown accustomed to going to sleep at six a.m. and waking up by one, so when clients drifted off around one or two, she simply wasn't ready to sleep. The little trick was a wonderful way to amuse herself and find out if her clients, all of whom claimed to be single, were actually married. If they had children. What they really thought about their best friends. What they actually thought of her -- but even though most of the answers were coarse and mean-spirited, she still was glad to know the truth.
"Whore," they'd say about her. "Nigger. Too young. Too old. Talks too much. Annoying bitch. Good head. Request her again."
Ciggy was the only one who had ever said anything nice about her.
"Sweet kid," he mumbled from the recesses of his subconscious after their third tete-a-tete. "Good soul. Fun body. Want to be friends."
That's how he became her favorite client. After that, she would do the unspeakable for a high priced call girl and cancel other clients at the last minute as soon as she found out that he had called for her.
So when she asked him about the ring while he was sleeping, she was flabbergasted to learn that he was going to propose to her. Further probing told her that he had come to this decision after the second day of shooting, and he was only waiting to find the right time to ask so that he didn't make a complete fool of himself.
"Anytime is right, my baby," she whispered into his sleeping ear. "You can't never make a fool of yourself with me."
Perhaps she didn't love Ciggy, but she liked him a lot. The little man was sweet and kind, and he always had her best interest at heart. Having seen him at work, she knew he was tough enough to protect her in the snake pit of Hollywood where she hoped to succeed. She could easily be very happy with such a man for at least five or six years. (She would be Ciggy's fourth wife, and so she didn't think he expected it to be permanent either.) But with his name after hers, she could go anywhere in town and hold her head high. As Marilyn Monroe said the day she became a star -- she'd never have to suck another cock again!
A legitimate actress in a real movie with an important agent and a respected husband was way beyond anything the poor, Detroit whore ever expected for herself. So when her big brother showed up at the Santa Monica beach house early that evening, she saw in a flash that her entire future could all crumble to bits in an instant.
It was much too easy for her to believe that G-Dog was Robby's stalker, and that he had shown up to "take care of him" because of what Cheyenne had told him on the phone. The movie would shut down, and her new Mammoth agent would have nothing with which to "sell" her. It would come out that Robby's death was all because of her. Ciggy would want nothing to do with her, and she'd be back to hooking within days.
She didn't know how her brother had found out where she lived -- she had only been there a few days -- but she knew better than to ask. G-Dog was just a low-level pimp, she believed, but she had seen in the past that he had real connections in L.A. Besides, he would never tell her the truth anyway.
So she invited him in, offered him a beer, then laid into him the moment he took his first sip. Robby is a nice guy with problems, nothing more. Yes, he had taken some of those problems out on her, but that was the shit speaking. Since then, he had gone out of his way to help her with her performance. And who could blame him for the coke and booze? He was an amazing actor who couldn't get work because he had done too well in his very first TV role. No one would hire him, he had been falsely accused of rape and his wife had left him. Who wouldn't turn to shit with all that on their back?
G-Dog simply smiled that smile that Cheyenne had seen all her life. It was a smile that could mean he was totally sincere, or that he was totally fucking with you. Their late Daddy had taught them both how to do it, and she was as good at it as her big brother. But in the end, despite his words, she had no idea what he was telling her.
"I didn't do nothin'," he said innocently. "I'm just in town to visit my l'il sister. Just don't tell no one you seen me."
"It don't matter if you like the white boy or not," Cheyenne explained as if he hadn't said a word. "Without Robby, my whole career could come crashing to a halt."
That's when the phone rang. G-Dog merely smiled another of one of his indecipherable smiles, and took a swig of his beer. Cheyenne wouldn't have even answered it had it not been Norman, leaving a message for Ciggy, about Robby's most recent arrest.
I've already told you what was said in this conversation in the chapter entitled "As The Restaurant Watches," so I won't waste bandwidth repeating it. G-Dog was the one who had picked up the other phone to listen in, and it scared Cheyenne all the more.
"Get off the fucking line, you bastard!" Cheyenne shouted. "Sorry, Norman, not you. My brother's here -- he's an asshole. I promise, he won't say nothing to nobody."
The second she hung up, she turned on her sibling. "You fuck Robby up, you hurt one hair on his lily-white body, I'll turn your ass in. This guy is my ticket to what I want, what Mama and Daddy wanted for me. You fuck with my shit, I'll fuck with yours royally."
"I ain't doin' shit, sis," he said once again with that same smile that could mean almost anything. "You treat me like shit like this? I say, fuck you, thanks for the beer."
He downed the rest of it and headed to the door, where he stopped. "I promised Daddy before he passed that I'd look out for you. And I'm gonna keep that promise. I'm gonna do what I gotta do, girl, and I'll come back when you got a mind to thank me."
And he left.
His only intention at that point was to go kill the wife of an L.A. city councilman as he had been instructed by his superiors. He had never met her, nor did he know why she had to die -- and that noninvolvement was the greatest strength of the System.
But the councilman's wife was not the only person whose life was in grave danger that evening.
*** Up Next: "The Witnesses" ***
The main characters in this e-novel are fictional and are not intended to portray or resemble any actual individuals, whether living or dead (except for Jeff Abugov who is a real screenwriter, director and producer.) Although certain real people and companies are mentioned in this e-novel, all of the events are fictional and are not intended to portray or resemble any actual events.
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