6. Anywhere
Ben fucking reels.
Turns and walks away.
The truth always comes home, but not to his home.
234
When Brian comes to, he’s duct-taped to a chair.
Chon sits across from him.
“What did I tell you?” Chon says. “What did I tell you I’d do if you laid another hand on one of our people?”
Brian remembers the answer. “Don’t. Please.”
“Say it-what did I tell you?”
“That you’d kill me.”
“Did you think I was kidding?”
“No.”
“Do you think I’m kidding now?”
“No. Please. Jesus.”
“I’m going to give you one motherfucking chance,” Chon says. “One. To tell me the truth. If you lie, I’ll know it and I’ll kill you. Tell me you understand, Brian.”
“I understand.” His legs are shaking.
“Who pulled the trigger on Scott Munson and that girl?”
“Duane.”
“Duane Crowe.”
Brian nods.
“What did you tell the cops?”
“Nothing.”
“Here’s what you’re going to do,” Chon says. “You’re going to call Crowe, tell him you want to meet.”
“He won’t come.”
“Tell him he comes or you tell the feds everything,” Chon says. “What’s his number?”
Brian tells him.
Chon takes Brian’s phone, punches in Crowe’s number, and holds it up to Brian’s mouth.
235
“I meant ‘sperm donor’ not as in ‘would you give me some sperm, please,’” O says, “but would you be the man who made a sperm deposit with, or rather with in, my mother that resulted in, well, me?”
Paul Patterson recovers his poise quickly and says, “Come in, please.”
He ushers O into a beautifully furnished living room that looks, well, old.
Old Newport Beach money.
Photos of sailboats on the wall. Wooden models of boats in glass cases.
“Do you sail?” O asks.
“I used to,” Patterson says. “Before I got… well, before I got too old.”
He is older than he was in her fantasy.
In her fantasy he was in his late forties maybe, handsome, of course, with just a streak of silver in the temples of his otherwise jet-black hair. In her fantasy he was athletic, he’d kept himself in shape, maybe he was a tennis player or a surfer or an iron-man triathlete.
The real man is in his early sixties.
His hair is wispy, a weird kind of yellow and white.
And he looks frail. His skin is translucent, like thin paper.
Her father is dying.
“Please sit down,” he says, pointing to an upholstered, wing-backed chair.
She sits and feels uncomfortable.
Small.
“Would you like something to drink?” he asks. “Iced tea or some lemonade?”
O loses it totally blows.
All that pent-up emotional lava just freaking explodes.
236
INT. PAUL PATTERSON’S HOUSE — DAY
O
Iced tea? Lemonade? That’s it?! After nineteen fucking years, that’s it? No hug, no kiss, no it’s so wonderful to finally meet you, I’m so sorry I abandoned you before you were born and broke your heart and totally fucked up your life?
Patterson looks sad. Even sadder as he answers PATTERSON
My dear Ophelia…
Don Winslow
The Kings Of Cool
237
Patterson goes Counter Darth Vader on it “I’m not your father.”
238
Ben pulls into the driveway of his parents’ house in the canyon, gets out of the car, walks up to the door, takes a deep breath, and rings the bell.
What the fuck do they have to do with all this, Ben wonders. For all their goofy, reconstructed-hippie bullshit, they’re essentially kind, loving people. Caring therapists, good if overbearing parents.
It feels like it takes forever, but his mother finally answers the door.
She looks shaken.
“Ben-”
Stan walks up behind her. Puts his hands on her shoulders and says, “Ben, what are you involved in?”
“What am I involved in?” Ben asks. “What are you involved in?”
239
