The actor soon learned that other hopefuls had fallen into this line of work; there was a loose network of them spread throughout the world. You didn’t audition; you were simply chosen. In a way, it made him feel like a secret superstar.
And this was his biggest role yet.
Still—all of that preparation Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night (because the real Philip and Jane liked to sleep most of the day away, curled up with each other while movies and music played nonstop in the background), left him exhausted. He was eager just to get this job done—impress them, then move on. The gas station part was fun, but it was a long slog to L.A. Lots of highway and hills and sun and then chain stores and houses and more hills.
As he drove, the man playing Philip wondered what the real Philip Kindred was doing right now. The official story was that the Kindreds were still on the loose; the FBI had kept them on their Ten Most Wanted list for the past year. Unofficially, they were told not to worry about the real Kindreds, because they had been apprehended a year ago and were being confined in secret and wouldn’t be talking to anybody.
Probably safe to say that nobody told Jonathan Hunter this little bit of news.
26
I wanted a symphony of powerful men…
… of lonely women
… of thick-necked losers
… of human ships that crash in the night.
—Sylvester Stallone
THE ARREST was straightforward. They eased the handcuffs on him, pulled him to his feet, shuffled him down the hallway, digital cameras capturing the scene, the cops shooing them away. He had feeling back in his legs now, and in his arms. Middle of his chest still felt dead, though. They read him Miranda. They put a hand on top of his head as they eased him into the back of the car. Slammed the door shut, ready to bring him in.
They figured out who he was, and his connection with the Philly PD, fairly quickly. They called in more uniforms when they realized they had a celebrity death. Their goal was to get Hardie away from the scene and let the tech guys start working it over.
Hardie wanted to save them the trouble and shout: I did it.
You won’t find a shred of evidence that’ll say otherwise.
His hands around her throat.
His fist that smashed into her badly bruised eye.
His skin cells all over her body.
They’d even helpfully left his duffel bag behind, the one that used to contain the one irreplaceable thing in his life.
Now it contained Lane Madden DVDs, photos, magazine articles, and other stalkerish paraphernalia.
Used to work with the Philly police or not… Hardie did it, and he was going down for it.
Hardie wondered how soon they’d let Deke know, if they’d try to contact him on the plane. Cell phones didn’t (allegedly) work up there, but many airlines had Internet. Hardie’s name was in the system, and he couldn’t imagine Deke wouldn’t have alerts in place in case anything went wrong with Charlie or his family in hiding. Deke would probably head right to the station house, ask for time alone with Hardie. Would Deke believe him? No idea. Even if Deke did, who would he go looking for? Where would he start?
And what did it matter, anyway? Their mission was accomplished. Delayed maybe. But Lane Madden still ended up dead, and the truth along with her. The truth about what had really happened to poor little Kevin Hunter.
In her last moments, she’d begged him, wordlessly pleading with him:
Save me.
Hardie couldn’t get rid of the image of her racked with pain, struggling to speak:
Save me.
The more he thought about it, me wasn’t right. Her lips hadn’t come together to form an m. Her tongue had darted out first, and a moment later, she ended the word with an m.
She wasn’t saying
Save me.
Lane was saying
Save them.
All it once it came to Hardie, his lizard brain finally snapping the last piece into place. Why hadn’t he realized it earlier, after Lane had confessed her sins?
As Deke had put it:
These shadowy agents or whatever want the actress gone before she tells the truth, right? Hell, if they’re already going through all this trouble, why not just bump off the Hunters, too? They’re the ones pushing for the answers. They could even do it on live TV.
The address in the GPS. 11804 Bloomfield. The one that Lane quickly dismissed from the screen.
11804 Bloomfield, Studio City, CA.
Oh fuck.
They weren’t done yet.
O’Neal didn’t say it out loud, but he couldn’t keep the thought from rattling around in his fuzzy, sleep-deprived mind.
They shouldn’t be doing this.
Seriously, it should be some other unit. He knew what Mann was thinking: turning this assignment over to another production team midstream was a sign of weakness. And you never showed weakness to your employers, because suddenly they’d lose your number and you’d never receive another assignment.
There were other directors out there—some legends, others rising stars. They were all known only by their monosyllabic code names, inspired by Hollywood directors. O’Neal had worked for “Fritz” (after Lang) as well as “Ray” (after Nicholas). He’d heard rumors of a “Hitch” as well as a “Brian” (after De Palma). Some Guild wags joked that Brian was actually the real Brian De Palma, moonlighting between thrillers. Meanwhile, some directors specialized. There was a “Howard” who was an expert on faking plane crashes, from Cessnas to 747s; an “Oliver” who worked on assassinations.
Deputy directors like O’Neal typically took on the names of famous actors, dead or alive. O’Neal took his name from Ryan; in the past he’d worked with an Eli (Wallach), a Van (Hefflin), a Sam (uel L. Jackson), a Myrna (Loy), a Bob (Culp).
The code names made it easy to keep Guild members straight. The code names also provided a nice protective layer of absurdity. Even if you were to stumble upon their plans, what were you going to say? Some dudes named “Oliver” and “Kevin” were plotting to assassinate a Rwandan president?
Mann’s code name, however, was both clever and a big fuck-you to the boys’ club that was the Guild. She chose it in honor of Anthony Mann, western and film-noir director extraordinaire, and claimed to be a huge fan of his work. But O’Neal knew it was just her way of saying:
Oh, I’ll show you who’s the fucking Mann.
No doubt about it, Mann was extremely talented. She worked with efficiency and innovation and with small, agile units. Not only did she smash through the glass ceiling of their peculiar little business, but she did it without leaving a fingerprint.
Fact remained, though: they were all injured and tired and punchy and twitchy and in no condition to be conducting an operation like this. But Mann didn’t give a shit. She didn’t care how tired you were or what your plans might be or what day it was. When Mann had a production and tapped you, you dropped everything and hung in there with her until it was complete.