"I told you, this is a mistake." Jimmy backed up, looking for an exit.
"Hey, don't you want to play?" The question had been the oft-repeated tagline of Packard's last box-office hit.
Jimmy edged into the main corridor. Halfway down the middle-aged wife nuzzled the golden chinchilla. The cameraman stepped into the aisle from behind her, still filming. Jimmy feinted, then threw a punch at Packard, a hard left hook.
Packard swatted the blow aside, hit Jimmy twice on the side of the head, and knocked him down. Packard mugged for the camera, beckoning Jimmy to rise to his feet.
Samantha Packard faced the lemur cage, her hands clenched at her sides.
Jimmy got up, his ears ringing as he rocked on the balls of his feet. He never saw the blow coming.
Packard moved in, low-kicked, then drove the heel of his left hand into Jimmy's chest and sent him stumbling back against a wall of glass cages.
Jimmy heard the scorpions scuttling behind him but kept his eyes on Packard. It hurt to breathe. He was scared.
Packard bounced forward, dodging and weaving, a smug little smile on his face. He was right where he wanted to be: in a big-screen moment.
Jimmy kept trying to box him, but Packard slipped past his punches, smacked him and retreated, then smacked him again. Jimmy was fast, faster than Packard, but Packard's timing was perfect.
Packard hit Jimmy again and again, hit him in the exact same place each time, smiling broader now as Jimmy got angrier and more desperate. Packard stuck his head forward, daring Jimmy to take a shot.
Jimmy lashed out, and his fist grazed Packard's chin before he got nailed again. The side of his head was numb now, and blood trickled from his ear. He backed up, gasping for breath. The middle-aged wife was right behind him now, asking her husband if they were filming a movie, her voice echoing, sounding like she was speaking from inside a seashell.
Packard grinned at him, easing forward.
Jimmy grabbed the golden chinchilla from the wife and tossed it to Packard.
Packard deftly caught the squealing chinchilla, then, confused, looked at the camera.
Jimmy punched him in the face, catching him good. The chinchilla clawed its way free and scampered down his leg. Jimmy hit him again, just below the nose this time, a pressure point where all the facial nerves gathered-right where Jane had taught him. Packard grunted, and Jimmy tripped him, drove him to the ground.
Packard got halfway up, cursing.
Jimmy kicked him, sending him sprawling. Packard tried to stand, but Jimmy didn't give him a chance. No marquess of Queensbury bullshit, no time-outs, no Geneva Convention, no director calling "CUT!" Jimmy kicked Packard's knee out from under him, kicked him when he struggled up, and punched him in the throat when he tried to explain. When Packard stopped trying to get up, Jimmy stopped hitting him.
The cameraman caught every moment of it.
Samantha Packard hadn't moved. She was still slumped against the glass, watching the sleeping lemur.
"Samantha?" Jimmy's voice was raspy.
Samantha pressed her hands against the thick glass, moaning, but the lemur didn't move, lost in some solitary rain-forest reverie where the light was cool and deep and green and the trees were heavy with fruit. If the lemur heard Samantha's soft cries in his dream, he didn't respond.
"Turn around, buddy."
Jimmy ignored the cameraman.
"You a stuntman or something, buddy?"
Jimmy shook his head. "Samantha, you have to get away from him."
Samantha Packard didn't move. "I'm sorry."
"This was for real then?" The cameraman zoomed in. "So could you please tell us why you're stalking Mick Packard's wife?"
Packard coughed and curled up on the floor. The macaw screamed at them, fluttering its bright wings.
Jimmy stared at Samantha Packard. He felt sick. "You're not the good wife, are you?"
Samantha Packard hung her head. "I've tried-I've tried to be."
Chapter 37
The footage from Santa Monica Exotics led every local newscast that evening, with endless replays of Mick Packard getting punched out, the chinchilla clawing at his turtleneck. It was a great TV moment. Now Jimmy understood why Samantha had picked three P.M. for the meeting: Mick Packard wanted to make sure they were able to make the broadcast deadline. He just hadn't counted on getting his ass kicked.
Jimmy had been standing around for the last half-hour at Napitano's monthly scavenger hunt party watching the action on the wide-screen in the media room. Everyone was having a good time, cheering and hooting. Rollo did a perfect Howard Cosell impression, and Nino danced around in his peacock-blue pajamas throwing mock punches with his tiny fists. Jimmy felt nothing but disappointment.
He had cast Mick Packard as the angry husband from the moment he saw him at Walsh's funeral. Cast Samantha as the good wife too. It had been more than a leap of faith; Samantha had admitted having an affair with Walsh, and Packard was a jealous control freak, rumored to be ex-CIA, with the cunning to orchestrate a setup. Jimmy had been wrong. Samantha's affair with Walsh hadn't made her special. When he had asked her about being the good wife in the pet shop, she hadn't understood-she had taken him literally. If Mick Packard had been the husband Jimmy was looking for, he would never have pulled the stunt in the pet shop. The man who had framed Walsh would have been more subtle; Jimmy would have a fatal accident or just disappear.
"Jimmy!"
Jimmy felt arms around him and a sweet-smelling woman kissing him, the pain stabbing through his face from where Packard had hit him. He pulled away and saw Chase Gooding in gold lame hiphuggers and a belly shirt, blond hair cascading across her bare shoulders, cold as granite and pink to the bone.
Rollo's eyes were bugging out of his head looking at her.
"Jimmy!" Chase kissed him again, the tip of her tongue banging against his teeth. "You got me on the guest list, just like you said you would! I didn't think anybody kept a promise anymore, but you did."
Jimmy disengaged himself from her. "You meet any Scientologists yet?"
"Mission accomplished. Me and Zed somebody are partnered up for the scavenger hunt," Chase said. "Zed goes to the downtown temple or church or whatever they call it. He doesn't know Tom Cruise personally, but I tell you, Jimmy, Zed's so clear and connected, it's scary." Chase's miniskirt showed off the striated muscles of her inner thighs. "Are you with anybody?"
"Aren't you going to introduce me to your little friend, Jimmy?" asked Napitano.
"Nino, this is Chase Gooding, an actress. Chase, this-"
"I know who Mr. Napitano is, silly," said Chase, air-kissing the publisher.
"A pleasure to meet you," Nino said solemnly. "Good luck in the scavenger hunt."
"Gosh," said Chase, flustered now. "I gotta go, or I'm going to blow it for the team. Ciao!" She winked at Jimmy and dashed off.
"What lovely breasts," said Napitano, watching her run across the marble floor, high heels clippity-clopping. "I hope she wins."
"You really got a thing with scavenger hunts, huh, Nino?" said Rollo.
"The scavenger hunt is uniquely American-dynamic, creative, forceful," said Nino, blue silk pajamas rippling with every gesture. "It is Manifest Destiny writ in the search for treasure real or imagined, the cultural detritus begged, borrowed, or stolen. You and Jimmy played the game magnificently, as I knew you would."
"Thanks, man," said Rollo. He glanced around and tapped his coat. "I got it."
"Wonderful." Napitano nodded at the current rerun of the fight at the pet store. "I've seen enough of our brave gladiator's exploits. Let us adjourn to my study for a screening, molto privato."
"Walsh's rough cut?" said Jimmy.
"Fucking-A Hammerlock, dude," confirmed Rollo.
Napitano led Jimmy and Rollo through the house, parting the crowd with an imperious flick of his hand. Purchased from a child actor whose brilliant career had flamed out a few years after puberty, the mansion was thirty-six thousand square feet of fun and offered two swimming pools, a poker room, an ice cream parlor, a full gym, a batting cage, and a video game center. Nino used almost none of the sports facilities, considering physical exercise a waste of time, but the ice cream parlor was fully utilized, the chocolate syrup flown in weekly from Switzerland. The study was in the farthest wing, where sounds from the party still echoed. Napitano punched in his entry code, shielding the numbers from view, then looked into an aperture on the wall. Retina scan complete, the door clicked open. "Please make yourself at home," he said as they followed him inside, the gimbaled door closing after them with a slight hiss.