I flinched. "You're changing the subject. What's that got to do with horoscopes and astrology?"
"Crane's birth date."
"Well?"
"It's the same as the day Deacon died."
I realized I'd stopped breathing. "So what?"
"More shit, man. Don't pretend it's coincidence. It's in the stars. You know what's coming. Crane's your bread and butter. But the gravy train'll end four months from now."
I didn't ask.
"Crane's birthday's coming up. The anniversary of Deacon's death."
And when I looked into it, there were other parallels. Wes would be twenty-three – Deacon's age when he died. And Wes would be close to the end of his third movie – about the same place in Deacon's third movie when he…
We were doing a script I'd written, Rampage, about a young man from a tough neighborhood who comes back to teach there. A local street gang harasses him and his wife until the only way he can survive is by reverting to the violent life (he once led his own gang) that he ran away from.
It was Wes's idea to have the character renew his fascination with motorcycles. I have to admit that the notion had commercial value, given Wes's well-known passion for motorcycle racing. But I also felt apprehensive, especially when he insisted on doing his own stunts.
I couldn't talk him out of it. As if his model behavior on the first two pictures had been too great a strain on him, he snapped to the opposite extreme – showing up late, drinking on the set, playing expensive pranks. One joke involving fire crackers started a blaze in the costume trailer.
It all had the makings of a death wish. His absolute identification with Deacon was leading him to the ultimate parallel.
And just like Deacon in his final picture, Wes began to look wasted. Hollow-cheeked, squinty, stooped from lack of food and sleep. His dailies were shameful.
"How the hell are we supposed to ask an audience to pay to see this shit?" the studio VP asked.
"I'll have to shoot around him. Cut to reaction shots from the characters he's talking to." My heart lurched.
"That sounds familiar," Jill said beside me.
I knew what she meant. I'd become the director I'd criticized on Broken Promises.
"Well, can't you control him?" the VP asked.
"It's hard. He's not quite himself these days."
"Dammit, if you can't, maybe another director can. This garbage is costing us forty million bucks."
The threat made me seeth. I almost told him to take his forty million bucks and…
Abruptly I understood the leverage he'd given me. I straightened. "Relax. Just let me have a week. If he hasn't improved by then, I'll back out gladly."
"Witnesses heard you say it. One week, pal, or else."
In the morning, I waited for Wes in his trailer when as usual he showed up late for his first shot.
At the open trailer door, he had trouble focusing on me. "If it isn't teach." He shook his head. "No, wrong. It's me who's supposed to play the teach in – what's the name of this garbage we're making?"
"Wes, I want to talk to you."
"Hey, funny thing. The same goes for me with you. Just give me a chance to grab a beer, okay?" Fumbling, he shut the trailer door behind him and lurched through shadows toward the miniature fridge.
"Try to keep your head clear. This is important," I said.
"Right. Sure." He popped the tab on a beer can and left the fridge door open while he drank. He wiped his mouth. "But first I want a favor."
"That depends."
"I don't have to ask, you know. I can just go ahead and do it. I'm trying to be polite."
"What is it?"
"Monday's my birthday. I want the day off. There's a motorcyle race near Sonora. I want to make a long weekend out of it." He drank more beer.
"We had an agreement once."
He scowled. Beer dribbled down his chin.
"I write and direct. You star. Both of us, or none."
"Yeah. So? I've kept the bargain."
"The studio's given me a week. To shape you up. If not, I'm out of the project."
He sneered. "I'll tell them I don't work if you don't."
"Not that simple, Wes. At the moment, they're not that eager to do what you want. You're losing your clout. Remember why you liked us as a team?"
He wavered blearily.
"Because you wanted a friend. To keep you from making what you called the same mistakes again. To keep you from fucking up. Well, Wes, that's what you're doing. Fucking up."
He finished his beer and crumbled the can. He curled his lips, angry. "Because I want a day off on my birthday?"
"No, because you're getting your roles confused. You're not James Deacon. But you've convinced yourself that you are, and Monday you'll die in a crash."
He blinked. Then he sneered. "So what are you, a fortune teller now?"
"A half-baked psychiatrist. Unconsciously you want to complete the legend. The way you've been acting, the parallel's too exact."
"I told you the first time we met – I don't like bullshit!"
"Then prove it. Monday, you don't go near a motorcycle, a car, hell even a go-cart. You come to the studio sober. You do your work as well as you know how. I drive you over to my place. We have a private party. You and me and Jill. She promises to make your favorite meaclass="underline" T-bones, baked beans, steamed corn. Homemade birthday cake. Chocolate. Again, your favorite. The works. You stay the night. In the morning, we put James Deacon behind us and…"
"Yeah? What?"
"You achieve the career Deacon never had."
His eyes looked uncertain.
"Or you go to the race and destroy yourself and break the promise you made. You and me together. A team. Don't back out of our bargain."
He shuddered as if he was going to crack.
In a movie, that would have been the climax – how he didn't race on his birthday, how we had the private party and he hardly said a word and went to sleep in our guest room.
And survived.
But this is what happened. On the Tuesday after his birthday, he couldn't remember his lines. He couldn't play to the camera. He couldn't control his voice. Wednesday was worse.
But I'll say this. On his birthday, the anniversary of Deacon's death, when Wes showed up sober and treated our bargain with honor, he did the most brilliant acting of his career. A zenith of tradecraft. I often watch the video of those scenes with profound respect.
And the dailies were so truly brilliant that the studio VP let me finish the picture.
But the VP never knew how I faked the rest of it. Overnight, Wes had totally lost his technique. I had enough in the can to deliver a print – with a lot of fancy editing and some uncredited but very expensive help from Donald Porter. He dubbed most of Wes's final dialogue.
"I told you. Horoscopes. Astrology," Donald said.
I didn't believe him until I took four scenes to an audio expert I know. He specializes in putting voices through a computer and making visual graphs of them.
He spread the charts in front of me. "Somebody played a joke on you. Or else you're playing one on me."
I felt so unsteady that I had to press my hands on his desk when I asked him, "How?"
"Using this first film, Deacon's scene from The Prodigal Son as the standard, this second film is close. But this third one doesn't have any resemblance."
"So where's the joke?"
"In the fourth. It matches perfectly. Who's kidding who?"
Deacon had been the voice on the first. Donald Porter had been the voice on the second. Close to Deacon's, dubbing for Wes in Rampage. Wes himself had been the voice on the third – the dialogue in Rampage that I couldn't use because Wes's technique had gone to hell.