spirited fun.' Losing interest, he returned to his papers.
'I don't know. . . .' Julianne lit a fresh cigarette off the end of her last. 'Why inform someone that you're watching them?'
'Maybe they flunked spy school,' I said.
She made a thoughtful noise in her throat. We watched students trickle out of our building below. With its giant windows, colonnades, and a metal swoop of roof, Manzanita Hall always struck me as oddly precarious, seeing that it was a product of the rebuilding effort after the '97 quake.
'Marcello's right. It's probably just harassment. If so, who cares? Until it becomes something else. But the other possibility'--she blew a jet of smoke through the window slit--'is that it's an implicit threat. I mean, you're a film teacher and a screenwriter--'
Over his papers, Marcello volunteered, 'Screenwroter.'
'Whatever. Which means whoever did this probably knows you've seen every thriller in the Blockbuster aisle.' Wrist cocked, elbow to hip, cigarette unspooling--she looked like a film noir convention in her own right. 'The recording-as-clue thing. It's Blowup, right?'
'Or Blow Out,' I said. 'Or The Conversation. Except I didn't accidentally happen upon this. It was delivered to me.'
'But still. They'd have to know you'd pick up on that movie stuff.'
'So why do it?'
'Maybe they're not after the usual.'
'What's the usual?'
'To reveal a long-buried secret. To terrorize you. Revenge.' She chewed her lip, ran a hand through her long red hair. I noticed how attractive she was. It was something that took effort for me to notice. From the first we'd had a sibling-like rapport. Ariana, even with her southern Italian sensibilities, had always been notably unjealous, and justifiably so.
'Someone at the studio could be behind the DVD,' Julianne added.
'The studio?'
'Summit Pictures. There is this little matter of a lawsuit. . . .'
'Oh, yeah,' I said. 'The lawsuit.'
'You have a lot of enemies there. Not just executives but legal, investigators, the whole posse. One of them could be fucking with you. And they've certainly made clear they're not on your side.'
I mused on this. I had a friend in Lot Security who it might be worth risking a visit to. The DVD had been hidden in the Entertainment section of the paper, after all. 'Why not Keith Conner?'
'True,' she said. 'Why not? He's rich and nuts, and actors always have plenty of time on their hands. And shady entourage members to do their bidding.'
The chimes sounded from the library, and Marcello exited, giving us a parting bow at the door. Julianne accelerated her inhales, the cherry glow jerking its way down the cigarette. 'Plus, you did punch him in the face. I've heard movie stars don't like that.'
'I didn't punch him in the face,' I said wearily.
She watched me watching her smoke. I must have had a longing expression, because she held out the butt, ash up, and asked, 'You miss it?'
'Not the smoking. The ritual. Tapping down the pack, my silver lighter, a smoke in the morning, in the car, with a cup of coffee. There was something so soothing about it. Knowing you could count on it. It was always there.'
She ground out the cigarette against the edge of the window frame, her eyes never leaving mine. Puzzled. 'You trying to give something else up?'
'Yeah,' I said. 'My wife.'
Chapter 6
When I pulled in to our driveway, Don Miller strode out his front door. Like he'd been waiting. It was just before ten o'clock--popcorn and Milk Duds for dinner at the Arclight cineplex. I'd promised a student I'd go to this pseudo-indie film he was ripping off for his assigned short, which was good because I'd seen all the other releases. It beat time at home.
As I walked over to grab the mail, Don met me at the curb. A broad, confident guy, ex-athlete handsome. He cleared his throat. 'The . . . ah, the fence at our property line is falling down. Section in the back there.'
I shifted the dry cleaning slung over my shoulder. 'I'd noticed that.'
'I was gonna have my guy fix it. Just wanted to make sure that's okay with you.'
I looked at his hands. I looked at his mouth. He'd grown a goatee. Animal hatred bubbled to the surface, but I just nodded and said, 'Fine idea.'
'I . . . ah, I know things have been a little thin for you lately, so I figured I'd just cover it.'
'We'll cover half.' I turned to head inside.
He stepped forward. 'Listen, Patrick . . .'
I looked down. His boot was across the pavement line, in my driveway. He froze and followed my stare. His face colored. He withdrew his foot, nodded, then nodded again, backing away. I watched until his front door closed behind him. Then I continued up my walk.
I went inside, dumped the mail and dry cleaning on the kitchen table, and chugged down a glass of water. Leaning against the sink, I ran my hands over my face, doing my best to ignore the mounting stack of dignified taupe envelopes on the counter, from the Billing Department of my lawyer's firm; his evergreen retainer had dipped beneath its thirty-thousand-dollar threshold yet again and needed refreshing. Beside it sat a forgotten dry-cleaning tag, set out by Ariana yesterday; in the morning commotion, I'd neglected to grab it. Despite everything, we were still trying to split our chores, maintain civility, dodge the mines floating beneath the calm surface. She needed that suit for a big client meeting tomorrow. Maybe by some miracle, the dry cleaner had pulled it with our other laundry. As I crossed to check, the little mound of mail caught my attention. The red prepaid Netflix envelope looked different, altered somehow. Blood moved to my face, warming it. I walked over, picked it up. The outside flap had been lifted and retaped. I tore it free, tilted the envelope. A blank sleeve slid out.
Inside was another unmarked DVD.
My hands shook as I fed the disc into the player. I was doing my best not to overreact, but my skin had gone cold and clammy. As much as I hated to admit it, I was as creeped out as a kid listening to a camp-fire ghost story, the ragged unease starting in my bones and moving outward, eating me up in reverse.
Falling back onto the couch, I fast-forwarded through footage of our front porch. It's weird how dread turns to impatience--can't wait for the ax to fall. Same shitty picture quality. The oblique angle, I slowly realized, had to be from the neighboring roof.
Don and Martinique's roof.
I'd made up the couch like a bed this morning, but already the sheets were shoved around from my fidgeting. Fists pressed to my knees, I waited, watching the screen to see what the action would be.
Sure enough, it was me again. The sight of my face sent a bolt of ice down my spine. Watching spy footage of me going about my clueless business was something I doubted I'd adjust to anytime soon.
On-screen, I stepped into view and glanced around nervously. The clothes I was wearing were the same ones I had on now. I appeared gaunt and not a little unwell, my expression sour and troubled. Was that really how I looked these days? The last year had taken its toll on me. How much younger I'd seemed in that bright-eyed picture they'd run in Variety when my script had sold.
As I stepped off the porch, the picture wobbled a little to keep me in frame. I went blurry, then came back into focus.
This effect, however minor, set my nerves on edge. The angle on the last DVD had been static, fixed; it suggested that someone had set up the camcorder and gone back to retrieve the footage later. This new clip left no doubt: Someone had been behind the camera, actively tracking my moves.
I watched myself walk around the house. Studying the ground, my head bent, I paused by the bathroom window. Adjusted my position. Inspected the wet grass. The Millers' chimney edged into the shot. I looked around, my gaze passing disturbingly close to the camera's position, Raymond Burr in Rear Window, only oblivious. A slow zoom to a close-up found my face drawn and angry. I said something to the window, and then the slats closed, pushed down from inside by Ariana's invisible hand. I trudged back to the porch, disappearing into the house.
