Wayne was trying to be patient. ‘Ain’t going to drag nobody into nothing, Bruce. You just have her come on up here, do your business like you would anyhow, and then she can go.’
With great reluctance Bruce crossed again to the wall intercom and picked it up. There was a harsh New York voice on the other end.
‘For Christ’s sake, Karl,’ said Bruce, ‘have you any idea what the time is?’ He put his hand over the receiver and turned to Wayne. ‘It’s not my wife, it’s my agent, a guy called Karl Brezner. He says he has to see me right now. It’s urgent.’
‘Now if me ‘n’ Scout wasn’t here, Bruce, and it was just you and Brooke here, would you let him up?’
‘I…’ Bruce knew he had hesitated too long to lie. ‘I guess I would, if he said it was urgent.’
‘Tell him you’re sending someone down,’ said Wayne.
Wayne put all the bigger guns behind the sofa cushions where Scout was sitting. He put one handgun in his pocket and Scout kept one ready under a cushion on her lap. ‘I’m going to go down to the gate and let Karl in so we can visit with him for a while. Now he don’t have to see no guns or nothing but Scout and me are going to be ready, and anybody who tries to mess around with us is going to get very dead, d’ya hear? So you all just sit tight till I get back. Like I say, this guy don’t need to see nothing suspicious.’
He was about to leave when Scout stopped him. ‘ Wayne, honey, what about the head?’
He laughed. Turning back, he plucked the head from its stand on the lava lamp and dropped it into a wastepaper basket.
Chapter Nineteen
‘Did you see that movie
‘
‘You make me laugh, Frank. Most days you get to see the insides of some poor fuckin’ dead guy or a smackhead drowned in his own puke and yet still my spit offends you.’
‘Just because we work in a pigsty doesn’t mean we gotta act like pigs.’
‘So did you see the movie?’ Another deposit of muffin crumbs.
‘Yeah, I saw the movie.’
‘And?’
‘And when they finally blow me away, I hope I look half as good. Look, I don’t care about any movie right now. I’m thinking, OK? Working. Remember work? Or maybe the city pays you to redistribute food.’
‘Oh my God, that’s funny. I can’t wait to have grandchildren so I can tell them how funny you are.’
Detective Jay ignored his partner. ‘These two psychos, they’re in LA, you know that?’ He was looking at the map he had made of Wayne and Scout’s most recent atrocities, plotting their course. ‘Look, they were heading straight down the interstate. Sure they left it after they did the motel murders, but if you plot a path between the caravan park and the 711, they are clearly heading for town.’
‘Maybe they turned around.’
‘Sure they did. They’re in LA, I’m telling you.’
‘Like we didn’t have enough psychos in LA already, for Christ’s sake,’ Crawford said. ‘You think they’re looking to go to ground?’
‘I doubt it. These wackos are attentionseekers. Serial showoffs. I mean, for Christ’s sake, making out against a Slurpy Pup in front of a bunch of bulletriddled shoppers! They think they’re some kind of twentyfirstcentury Bonnie and Clyde. I don’t see them wanting to lose themselves in a big city.’
‘Maybe they’re visiting relatives.’
Detective Jay looked again at the crime report on Wayne ’s attempted murder of the old storekeeper.
‘Bourbon, smokes, pretzels… and a guide to the movie people’s homes.’
On the desk in front of him was a copy of the LA
‘Movie people’s homes,’ Detective Jay repeated. ‘Hey Joe, that picture,
‘Kurt Kidman and Suzanne Schaefer, although there were a lot of cameos. Anyhow, I thought you didn’t care about no movies.’
‘Yeah, well, I changed my mind.’
Chapter Twenty
How much time did Bruce have? His was a very big house and the drive was a long one. If Wayne intended to go all the way down to the gates, he would be gone perhaps ten minutes. If he let Karl come up the drive, and met him at the front door, the whole thing would take no more than five. Either way, not really long enough for much delicate negotiation.
‘All right, young lady,’ Bruce barked, trying to summon up the voice with which he cowed cinematographers and hordes of extras, ‘this has gone far enough. If you hand over your gun now, it is just possible that I may be able to speak on your behalf at your trial.’
Scout did not look at Bruce but she slid the cushion from her lap, revealing her gun. ‘I don’t want to have to kill you but I will.’ She said it quietly, almost sadly, but she clearly meant it: both that she didn’t want to kill him and that she would.
Bruce was at a loss to know how to proceed. He hadn’t really hoped that schoolmasterly authority would bear much fruit, but it was the only idea he had.
Brooke had completed her programme of breathing. She was centred now, in control and ready to attempt a different approach. She stared at Scout. Her face wore a strange expression; she looked interested but slightly perplexed. She tilted her head one way, then the other, all the time looking at Scout as if trying to get a better angle, trying to work her out. Scout knew she was being studied, and reddened. She stared down at the cushion, which she had now put back in her lap to cover the gun.
‘Scout,’ Brooke said, ‘may I do something?’ Almost without waiting for an answer, she leant forward, took a lock of Scout’s hair which was hanging down in front of her face, and gently pushed it behind her ear. ‘You’re a pretty girl, Scout, you know that? Real pretty.’
To Bruce this seemed such a transparent ploy that he expected Scout to shoot them both on the spot, but she didn’t. She just kept on staring at the cushion in her lap and said, ‘Oh I don’t think so.’
‘Oh yes you are, Scout,’ Brooke insisted. ‘A very pretty girl. Except you don’t make as much of yourself as you could. Like, for instance, you have beautiful hair, but you’ve done nothing with it.’
Scout shyly explained that there had been all blood and bits of brain and stuff in it from a regrettable incident which had occurred recently in a 711. She had been forced to rinse out her hair in the ladies’ room, which was why it was such a mess.
Brooke knelt on the carpet in front of Scout. ‘Well, I’ll bet I could help you with that kind of thing, Scout. Maybe we could do a little makeover on you. I have my beauty bag and I’ll bet Bruce’s daughter has left some great clothes in the house – we could pick something out. You could look like a movie star. Don’t you think so, Bruce?’
Bruce was amazed. Scout seemed to be taking Brooke’s interest seriously. At least, she hadn’t shot her.
‘Yes, Scout is very pretty,’ he answered stiffly.
Scout’s attention still appeared to be riveted to the cushion.
Brooke addressed the top of Scout’s head. ‘You could have so much going for you. I bet any agent would love to have a cute little girl like you to look after.’
