Wetbones

line, as Prentice asked, 'You said you heard about this Doublekey ranch?'

'It's out near Malibu, like the boy said. I think… You know what it is, if I'm remembering right: It's Sam and Judy Denver's place.'

'You say their names like I'm supposed to know who they are.'

'Remember Honolulu Hello? That was their show. They produced that and Gun City and a couple of others and really cleaned up for a while which was pretty easy since their sponsor was -'

'Their sponsor was Horizon Soaps. Very funny. Stick to action writing, Jeff.'

'Lighten up, man.'

'Oh yeah, right,' Prentice said, rankled. 'Amy got chewed up and spit out by some asshole around here.

My career's in the dumpster. Then we hear all this depressing shit about Mitch. And the top of my head feels like you could fry an egg on it. And I'm supposed to lighten up?' Self pity again, he told himself. But it was hard not to take refuge in it. With Amy in a file drawer.

'So anyway,' Jeff went on, 'the Denvers used to host a very exclusive high powered little clique. They used to be quite fashionable. Then they sort of dropped out of sight. Supposed to be living quite comfortably off their residuals. Honolulu Hello is always in re-runs… I guess it was the molestation thing.' Mitch grimaced. 'The Denvers were accused of child molestation. The children of some maid they had for awhile…' His voice trailed off.

Prentice articulated what were probably Jeff's thoughts. 'Child molestation? And Mitch is out there? He's not a kid but he's close enough…'

Jeff was chewing his lower lip. 'I… don't know. Nothing was proven on them. But where there's smoke there's fire, or sometimes anyway. And there was lots of smoke.'

'Well shit, then. Let's go to the cops, tell them that these accused child molesters have your teenage brother. They could be abusing him some way.'

'I don't know, man. I promised Lonny -'

'You worried about your dick falling off, Jeff?'

'It's not my dick, it's my word, okay? But the other thing is – I don't want to give Mitch to the cops again. I mean, how much good were they doing for his 'rehabilitation' out in that place where he manages to carve himself up like a fucking turkey, you know?'

'You always hated cops anyway. How come?'

Jeff was silent for a minute or two. Then he said,

'I did some time when I was a kid too…'

Prentice nodded. His eyes had settled on Jeff's carphone. 'Can I use your phone?'

'Sure. It's got kind of a crackly signal, but go for it, man.'

'Thanks.' Prentice took the phone off the cellular unit just under the dashboard and punched his agent's number.

Buddy kept him on hold for five minutes, but Prentice had nothing else to do as the car crawled toward the exit still a quarter mile away. Prentice glanced at Jeff…

And was surprised, and then not so surprised, to see that Jeff was crying. Silently crying; his bony cheeks coursing with tears. Thinking about his brother. Prentice looked away, gazed at the tract homes and Denny's restaurants and Macdonalds and Burger Kings, their toylike roofs visible down below the guard rail of the freeway. He tried to give Jeff some privacy, that way.

Finally he got Buddy on the line, shouting through the brassy pipe of the speaker phone. Buddy didn't palter with amenities. 'Hey, Tom. How ya doin'. Say, I spoke to Athwright and he says he's giving your project 'serious consideration'. I don't know what that means except it's better than 'don't waste my time with that kind of shit' which is what he said about the last guy I sent over. But there's no guarantees. You know what you should do, if you want a break, dontcha? I mean, studios don't buy treatments much, they don't commission scripts too often anymore, nowdays they like to see that finished script. So they can make you rewrite it ten thousand times. But you know what I mean – a spec script, man -'

'Hey, I'm working on that.' Which was a lie. Prentice had started half a dozen scripts but nothing came together in his head. It was like a locomotive with no steam pressure, it just wouldn't go, and he told himself If I get the money for a commission I'll be motivated, I'll be financially relieved too, that'll loosen up the inspiration… I need the money first… Some part of himself knowing he was making excuses. 'But listen Buddy, it's still possible to get some money out front for, you know, people with a track record. I had a couple of misfires but I proved I can do it, I'm a Player, man, and if we act as if I'm not a Player then they 'll think I'm not.'

'Look – a spec script gets you a lot more money. That's the bottom line.'

'Like I said, I'm working on it. But that could take months. And in the meantime I need an advance. I got bills to pay.'

'Well – I'm working on that. So. How ya doin', holdin' up okay? About Amy I mean. You feel okay?'

'Yeah I'm okay – uh -'

'Good, great, I'll call you if anything firms up, Okay? Ciao -'

'Buddy! Take a breath, pull your finger back from that button for one second. Listen – I'm not just whining here. I need some work.' He was aware, on some level, that he was saying this partly for Jeff's benefit. In the hopes that Jeff would pull some strings somewhere. Jeff was connected. 'I mean: I really need work. Starting with an advance.'

A moment of static. Some of Buddy's reply lost in interference. ' – think, you're not? I tell you what – just to pay some bills – I do have something. You willing to do a slasher movie? This is not Guild work, you understand, it's kind of under the board, you'd get maybe ten grand -'

'Are you serious?'

'I know it's piddly shit but hey if you need cash that badly, well… just to fill in, you could do it and forget about it. Do it under a pseudonym. It's going right to video – it's a made-for-video slasher film, see. It's called Class Cut-Up.'

'Cute.' Prentice thought about it for about five seconds. Decided he'd rather go back to bartending. But he didn't want to fling the one effort Buddy had made for him back in the guy's face… 'Let me sleep on that, okay, Buddy? And if anything else comes up'

'I'll get back to you. I got another call here -'

'Take it. Ciao.'

Prentice hung up the phone. It seemed he was going to be twisting slowly in the wind of Arthwright's whim.

Anyway, they'd reached the exit. That was a start.

But when they drove down onto the surface street, major street repairs were going on, complete with ear battering jackhammers and backhoes jetting clouds of blue smoke. The traffic down here was even worse.

Near Malibu, California

Mitch was at the bottom of a swimming pool. An old concrete swimming pool filled with water so green it was almost black.

For some reason, he could breathe in here, under water.

Something big was shaking and quivering over in that green obsidian corner. The big shaking thing was coming closer to him now. A cloud of wiggling things. Worms.

Wriggling worms, glinting in the faint light from above. Closing around him. When he inhaled, he sucked them wriggling into his throat, trickling and slithering into his bronchial tubes, squirming with a kind of funnybone pain inside his lungs…

Worms in his lungs!

He thrashed about, trying to gag them up.

He fell off the bed with a bruising thump. Felt the hardwood floor under his hands. A swatch of bedclothes against his cheek. He'd been dreaming. In bed. The hospital. He was…

… not in the hospital, he saw, now, as he got painfully onto his knees.

He was raw with pain; grinding his teeth with the punishment that came every time he moved. As he looked around.

It was a room he'd never seen before. It was dark, and the colours of the room seemed to shift one into another when he didn't look directly at them. Old wallpaper, peeling in the comer; a pattern of hook-shapes alternating with drooping rosebuds. Could be this was where the hallucination of the worms had come from; a