‘C’mon, Bruce, cut us some slack here,’ he appealed. ‘This is a very serious situation. There are two genuine psychos out there, shooting up malls and killing just about everybody they meet, right? Now, in your Oscarnominated movie
‘And every time these crimes are reported in the media,’ Bruce interrupted, ‘the story gets illustrated with a still from my movie. Now who’s making the association? The psychos themselves? Or is it the news editors of America, desperate to get an original angle on yet another boring news bulletin about murder and mayhem?’
‘Copycat murders, for God’s sake! Human beings aren’t Pavlov’s dogs. You can’t just ring a bell and make them salivate. They don’t simply do what they see. If it were that easy to manipulate people, no product would ever fail and no government would ever fall.’
In the motel chalet the scrawny girl was getting bored with watching Bruce on the TV.
‘Baby?’ she said.
‘Quiet, honey. I’m thinking ‘bout something.’
There was a knock at the door.
In an instant the man was off the bed and across the room. He clamped himself against the wall beside the door, naked save for his tattoos and the guns he held in either hand. He put one finger to his lips, instructing the girl to say nothing.
They waited. Inside the TV Bruce continued to pontificate: ‘Our industry’s in danger. It’s under attack. We’re the scapegoats, the whippingboys. Every time some kid lets loose with a gun, who do they blame? They blame Hollywood. They blame me. They don’t like my movies – they say they’re wicked. Well, they’re entitled to their opinion. What they’re
‘Provocative? Thoughtprovoking?’ From inside the TV Oliver addressed the room where the two fugitives waited. ‘You betcha sweet grandma it is. You’re watching
‘Now you can eat what you want
There was another knock at the door of the motel room. Still the young man and woman did not answer.
Then they heard the rattle of keys. The man nodded to the girl. She was still lying on the bed, although she too now held a gun, which she had produced from under her pillow.
‘Who is it?’ she called out.
‘Please, you want I make up your room now?’ a small Latin American voice asked.
‘No, that’s OK. It’s fine,’ said the girl.
‘OK,’ said the maid. ‘I just give you fresh towels.’
‘We don’t want no towels.’
‘OK.’ There was a pause. ‘You want soap?’
No.
‘OK.’ Again a pause. ‘How about some sachet coffee and milks? Or maybe you got plenty.’
‘Yeah, we got plenty. We don’t want nuthin.’
‘OK, that’s fine. Thank you.’
The man, whose every muscle had been taut and every vein pumped full, relaxed a little.
But then the small voice came again. ‘So I just check minibar, please.’
Suddenly the door of the chalet burst open and the maid found herself confronted by a furious and stark- naked man. She would scarcely have been more taken aback if she had known that behind the cover of the doorframe he was holding two automatic weapons.
‘No fuckin’ disturbo, comprende? We fuckin’ honeymoono. We make amoro like Speedy fuckin’ Gonzalez, OK?’
He slammed the door and returned to the bed. His girlfriend was not pleased. ‘There was no call to-’
She knew she must not cross him further, and slumped into a sulk instead.
Bruce was still holding forth on the television. ‘You can’t ban a movie because you don’t like it. Today it’s sex and violence that get banned, tomorrow who knows? Homosexuality? Blacks? Jews?’
Oliver and Dale shifted uneasily in their seats. Words like ‘blacks’ and ‘Jews’ were not really
‘I’ve heard a lot said these past weeks about the Mall Murderers,’ Bruce continued, ‘so let’s talk about them. I made a move about two sick maniacs, and to and behold we got two real sick maniacs out there. Hey, what d’you know? Put two and two together and it’s
‘But you can’t deny-’ Dale began in a brave attempt to stop the flow. It was useless: this was a subject on which Bruce felt strongly.
‘We are scapegoats! This nation is facing a lawand-order crisis of cataclysmic proportions and someone must be blamed. The politicians don’t want to take the heat, so who gets it? Us, the entertainers, the artists. Well, I’ve got news for you. Artists don’t create society, they reflect it. And it you don’t like that, don’t change us, change society.’
Oliver threw to another ad break, and in the motel room the naked man got himself another beer.
‘Well, you gotta accept,’ he said, knocking the top off a Budweiser with the butt of his Smith amp; Wesson, ‘the guy has a point.’
‘I think he sounds like a jerk,’ his girlfriend replied grumpily.
‘Hey, everybody’s a jerk, baby, one way or another. Cain’t hold that against a man. One thing’s for damn sure. Bruce Delamitri makes the best fuckin’ movies in the world, and if they don’t give him that Oscar I for one will be extremely pissed.’
There was another knock at the door.
‘Please,’ the maid said, ‘I must just check the minibar. Sorry.’
The man got up off the bed. ‘I’ll handle this, honey.’
‘Tell me about him,’ the policewoman said.
‘I just used to sit there looking at him,’ the young girl said, ‘just thinking he is the coolest, most beautiful guy that ever was. Better than everything. You could take Elvis and Clint Eastwood and James Dean… and I don’t know… all those other cool guys, and mix ‘em up, and you wouldn’t get no one half as cool as him.’
In the other interview room, Bruce was responding to a similar enquiry. ‘You have to understand that he was a psychotic monster,’ he told his interrogator. ‘Do you hear me? A monster, the devil… a monster.’
Chapter Three
‘I stand here on legs of fire.’
It was after eleven on the morning after the Oscars, and the police had left Bruce alone for almost two hours.
