Coldheart Canyon: A Hollywood Ghost Story

His stomach lurched. Here was the heart of it: the bitter part nobody had wanted to admit to him; not even himself. He was spoiled. Perhaps just a little, but a little was all it would take to shake him from his high perch. His precious face, his golden face, the beauty that had made him the idol of millions, had been irreparably damaged.

'I know,' Katya said, 'you're thinking your life won't be worth living. But that's just not true.'

'How the hell do you know?' he said, smarting from the truth, angered by her honesty.

'Because I knew all the great stars, in the silent days. And believe me, the smart ones—when they weren't making the money any longer—just shrugged and said okay, I've had my time.'

'What did they do then?'

'Listen to yourself! There's life after fame. Sure, it'll take some getting used to, but people have perfectly good lives—'

'I don't want a perfectly good life. I want the life I had.'

'Well you can't have it,' she said, very simply.

It was a long time since somebody had told Todd Pickett that he couldn't have something, and he didn't like it. He took hold of her wrists and pulled her hands away from his face. A quick fury had risen in him. He wanted to strike at her, knock her stupid words out of her mouth.

'You know, you are crazy,' he said.

'Didn't I tell you?' she said, making no attempt to touch him again. 'Some nights I'm so crazy I'm ready to hang myself. But I don't. You know why? I made this hell for myself, so it's up to me to live in it, isn't it?'

He didn't respond to her; he was still in a filthy rage about what she'd said.

'Do you understand what I'm saying?'

'I think I've had it with your advice for the night,' he said, 'so why don't you just go back wherever you came from—'

In mid-sentence he heard Marco calling.

'Boss? Are you okay? Where the hell are you?'

He looked toward the door, half-expecting to see Marco already standing there. He wasn't. Todd then looked back at Katya, or whoever the hell she was. The woman was retreating from him, shaking her head as if to say: don't tell.

'It's okay!' he yelled to Marco.

'Where are you?'

'I'm fine. Go make me a drink. I'll meet you in the kitchen!'

Katya had already retreated to the far end of the room, where the shadows from which she had originally emerged were enclosing her.

'Wait!' Todd said, his fury not yet completely abated.

He wanted to make sure the woman didn't leave thinking she would be allowed to come back, come stalking him while he slept, damn her. But she had turned her back on him now, ignoring his instruction. So he went after her.

A door opened in the darkness ahead of him, and he felt a wave of night-air, cool and fragrant, come in against his face. He hadn't known that there was a door to the outside of the house at the far end of the Casino, but she was out through it in a heartbeat (he saw her silhouette as she flitted away along a starlit path), and by the time he reached the door she was gone, leaving the shrubs she'd brushed as she ran shaking.

He stepped over the threshold, and looked around, attempting to orient himself. The path Katya had taken led up the hill, winding as it went. Back to the guest-house, no doubt. That was where the crazy lady was in residence. She'd made herself a nice little nest in the guest-house. Well, that was easily fixed. He'd just send Marco up there tomorrow to evict her.

'Boss?'

He walked back into the Casino and stared down at the expanse of floor where she'd had him picturing her making love. He'd believed her, too; a little. At least his dick had.

Marco was at the other end of the room.

'What the hell's going on?' he said.

Todd was about to tell him there and then—about to send him up the hill to oust the trespasser—but Marco was bending down to gingerly pick something up from the ground. It was Todd's discarded bandages.

'You took 'em off,' he said.

'Yeah.'

The rage he'd felt started to seep out of him now, as he remembered the tender way she'd looked at him. Not judging him, simply looking.

'What happened, Boss?'

'I found another door,' he said rather lamely.

'Was there somebody here?' Marco said.

'I don't know,' he said. 'Maybe. I was just wandering around, and I came down here . . .'

'The door was open?'

'No, no,' Todd said. He closed the door with a solid slam. 'I just tried it and it was unlocked.'

'It needs a new lock then,' Marco said, his tone uncertain, as though he was suspicious of what he was being told, but playing along.

'Yes, it needs a new lock.'

'Okay.'

They stood for a moment at opposite ends of the room, in silence.

'Are you all right?' Marco said after a pause.

'Yeah. I'm fine.'

'You know pills 'n' liquor'll be the death of you.'

'I'm hopin',' Todd replied, his joviality as forced as Marco's.

'Okay. If you say you're okay, you're okay.'

'I'm okay.'

Marco proffered the bandages. 'What do you want me to do with these?'

'What do you think?' Todd said, getting back into the normal rhythm of their exchanges now. The door was closed. The woman and the path and the nodding shrubs were out of sight. Whatever she'd said, he could forget, at least for tonight. 'Burn them. Where's that drink? I'm going to celebrate.'

'What are you celebrating?'

'Me losing those damn bandages. I looked like God knows what.'

'Burrows might want you to keep 'em on.'

'Fuck Burrows. If I want to take the bandages off, it's my choice.'

'It's your face.'

'Yeah,' Todd said, staring again at the ground where the crazy woman had claimed she'd lain, imagining her there. 'It's my face.'

TWO

Maxine came up to the house the following afternoon to tell Todd about the Oscar festivities, reporting it all —the ceremony itself, then the par-ties—with a fine disregard for his tenderness. Several times he almost stopped her and told her he didn't want to hear any more, but the dregs of curiosity silenced him. He still wanted to know who'd won and who'd lost.

There'd been the usual upsets, of course, the usual grateful tears from the usual surprised ingenues, all but swooning away with gratitude. This year, there'd even been fisticuffs: an argument had developed in the parking lot at Spago's between Quincy Martinaro, a young, fast-talking filmmaker who'd made two movies, been lionized, and turned into a legendary ego all in the space of fifteen months, and Vincent Dinny, a vicious writer for Vanity Fair who'd recently profiled Martinaro most unflatteringly. Not that Dinny was a paragon himself. He was a waspish, embittered man in his late sixties, who—having failed in his ascent of the Hollywood aristocracy—had turned to writing about the town's underbelly. Nobody could have given a toss for his