Upgunned (40 page)

“Everything good so far, Mr. Youngman?” he said to the inert form submerged to the nostrils in the giant spa tub, like a crocodile patiently outwaiting new prey. A languid bubble fought its way up through the dense liquid and took its time popping. The steam taps lent the room the sound of a kettle on low boil.

The occupant of the tub did not reply, but his golden reptile eyes slowly considered the intruder.

“Y'know, I was reading about ‘ablutions' in the dictionary,” Roddy said, his voice echoing off the tile, yet muted by vapor; a sound booth effect. “It can mean any kind of washing or cleansing, from blessings, to baptisms, to exorcisms.”

Mr. Youngman's lips barely moved. “I'm sure that's deeply fascinating to you, but I should prefer you stop talking, please.”

“Oh. Yah. Right. Of course. Sorry.”

The golden eyes watched Roddy back out, subserviently, to
get right on
whatever little white trash chores enriched his existence. Stupid pillock. He had to be new. A memorandum would be sent, and a gratuity overlooked.

Less than five minutes later, the idiot came back. Without his glasses.

“Mr. Youngman? So sorry to disturb you, but there's one more thing.”

Before the tar-pitted fat man could roll his eyes, huff out a sigh, or protest in any way, Roddy dismembered him with five rounds from an AA-12—the Atchisson Assault Shotgun—which made a vast bowl of muddy gruel. At this distance, with this weapon, there was no way in hell he could miss. The gun's roar sounded like Armageddon, but there was no one else present. Lifeblood and therapeutic mud splashed the walls and pooled on the clean white floor, with some of the red stuff following the grout patterns in the tile.

Roddy stripped his latex gloves, which had been specified for dealing with Mr. Youngman. He locked up for the night. Then he ceased to exist at all.

*   *   *

Miss Mystery Date bid me farewell and left me holding the ice-diluted dregs of a drink. My instructions were not to follow her, or even watch her leave.

Beneath her Stella Artois coaster she had left me a folded piece of paper.

The rest, you can guess.

The shotgun came from a rathole apartment in Thai Town, a place so devoid of personal identity that it could have been a three-walled movie set. No computer, no TV, a strictly functional way station. A toothbrush had been left in the mildewy bathroom. Gun Guy's toothbrush. He had brushed his teeth in here, watching himself in the mirror, thinking of how he was going to make me suffer.

Mal Boyd was a fat spider in the middle of a fatter web. My entire rebirth had begun with Mal Boyd. And Mal Boyd was cocooned in security, with the conditional exception of a single day every month, like clockwork.

I considered Roddy's last name: Caperton. I had gotten it from an obituary.

Then I got in touch with a special effects house in Chatsworth, and arranged a consultation for a special hairpiece, exploiting my Tripp contacts. A lionish, good-natured fellow named Greg listened to my lie about having cancer and needing a wig that looked exactly like my normal hair. Pricier this way, but more exact. They did it for actors.

Then I let Roddy shave my head, in honor of Joey. Awesome.

I decided on fake glasses for Roddy. Frames distort memory of one's face. I looked like a used-to-be keyboardist for some nightly talk show band. He maintained a neat—though dyed—goatee to lend his profile more chin. That was what people would remember, if they ever saw him: Bald guy. Glasses. Goatee. The same as thousands of L.A.'s other denizens.

I shot my own photos for Roddy's assorted forms of ID. Bald guy, glasses. goatee, check.

By day I could wear my Elias wig and be Elias. By night I could commence my auxiliary career, working up cred for Roddy, who was friendly and talky and too helpful and not bright enough to piss anyone off.

I had become, in the parlance, a “fake-hair-wearin' bitch.”

One who, at night, waited patiently, trading his fake hair for a shotgun.

*   *   *

Limelight is the last thing I want.

Right now there's a billboard in Times Square, eighty feet tall, prime placement; a picture of Davanna that I shot. Kleck was angling for a reality show. New human oddities were already auditioning for him.

Notoriety, fame? Not for me.

Some memories, those compressed files of Davanna's perceptions, can flower open at the vaguest cue. They remain painful, almost physically debilitating.

All of it is information I do not wish to disseminate.

Roddy Caperton vanished from the face of the planet and my hair grew back to normal.

I absolutely do not want to be quoted, anywhere.

I respond to e-mails and texts in the dead of night, a time-delay collaborator. You won't see me much in the daytime anymore.

It's bad for my eyes.

To the complaint, “There are no people in these photographs,” I respond, “There are always two people: the photographer and the viewer.”

—
ANSEL ADAMS
, (1902–84)

 

END CREDITS

Arly Zahoryin
attained Internet notoriety for posting a YouTube video entitled
At Gunpoint,
purportedly footage of a genuine hit man recorded during the filming of the movie
Vengeance Is
. He is currently directing his first feature film,
CyberGator Vs. Tarantulasaurus,
for the Syfy channel.

Tripp Bergin
recently threw a party at the Casting Office Bar & Grill in Universal City, California, to celebrate his fifty-seventh birthday … and his five hundredth gimme cap, for
Vengeance Is
.

Andrew Collier
is currently working with a biographer on a book entitled
When Does It Blow Up?,
about the perils of transitioning from big studio work to independent features after the “tent-pole crash” of 2011.

Clavius
(real name: Danko Dyakov) received the BoHo Humanitarian Award in 2011 for his photo series in
Clique
magazine entitled “Ugly Reality: Celebrity Cosmetology Laid Bare.”
Clique
transitioned to a digital-only publication in 2011.

Artesia Savoy
was sued by Mason Stone following the exposure of several so-called “sex tapes” with the popular action star. Stone won a punitive judgement of $250,000 when it was concluded that the man in the suspect videos “was not demonstrably Mason Stone.” She is presently working in the adult video industry.

Mason Stone
's latest summer blockbuster is
Cold Barrel Zero
, for directing team the Suturabo Brothers.

Garrett Torres
(second lead bad guy) is currently starring in the second season of his own HBO series,
Sword & Sandal
, about gladiators.

Harry “Boss” Wiley
became a successful producer of pay-on-demand adult content for Internet distribution. Some of his projects star Artesia Savoy.

William “Cap” Weatherwax
's firm, Fire When Ready, remains the go-to group for movie firearms consultation.

FFF Corporation,
the makers of FelineFeast Fancy Cat Foods, suffered a crippling setback in 2011 due to a massive recall caused by salmonella contamination in their product line.

Spooky Sellars
(publicist) abruptly left the production of
Vengeance Is
. Her current whereabouts are unknown.

Kleck
and
Klia
(real names) are currently cochairs of Salon Fantastique Enterprises, LLC.

Elias McCabe
is the reclusive director of McImages and cochair of Salon Fantastique International. He has never consented to be interviewed, and very little is known about his personal life.

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Upgunned
is not a sequel to
Internecine
, although it takes place in the same general universe as that novel.

Large thanks to Thomas Jane, not only for various heroic step-ups, but for letting me use his face on the cover (again, twice!), and to Tim Bradstreet for rendering the artwork so adroitly and dependably. Several times.

For long—nearly lifelong—advocacy by colleagues, I need to put these names before you once more: John Farris, Peter Farris, Joe R. Lansdale, Michael Marshall Smith, Peter Straub, Duane Swierczynski, and F. Paul Wilson. Read them.

And pick up some Robert Bloch, while you're at it.

Behind-the-Scenes Staff: Charles Ardai of Hard Case Crime; Brendan Deneen, Nicole Sohl, and Thomas Dunne of St. Martins Press/Thomas Dunne Books, John Schoenfelder of Mulholland Books, and John Silbersack of Trident Media Group.

The story of “Mason Stone's Night of Thunder” was cribbed from a production experience I had on the set of
I, Robot
(it was blamed on Will Smith in the papers, and Will wasn't even there). My gratitude goes to longtime pal Alex Proyas and the entire cast and crew of that 2004 film.

On the home front, none of this could have been accomplished without the indulgence of the deeply lovable Kerry Fitzmaurice.

The ready friendship of Underworld denizen Ken Mitchroney also got me over a lot of speed bumps. Ditto Michael Boatman, Ernest Dickerson, Frank Dietz, Dave Parker, and Sam Witwer.

In the DJS Armory you'll find such luminaries as movie firearms expert Ron Blecker, champion three-gunner Taran Butler, Paul and Jonathan Ehlers, walking ordnance encyclopedia John Fasano, Josh T. Ryan (formerly of Burbank's Gun World and the Showtime series
Lock 'n Load)
, Pete Bitar, president of XADS (Xtreme Alternative Defense Systems, Ltd.), and the ever-reliable Ken Valentine—gun men, all.

Needless to say, Cap Weatherwax and his behavior as regards live firearms on a movie set are both complete fabrications, and no connection exists or should be inferred between Cap's doings and the stone-cold reliability and ethics of any professional armorer or firearms expert on any real-world movie set, anywhere, ever.

Atmosphere provided by
You Are Listening to Los Angeles
(
http://youarelisteningtolosangeles.com
)—LAPD police band monitor veneered with ambient music. It is utterly addictive.

Molly's Charbroiler, on Vine Street, closed forever on June 30, 2011, after being in business for
eighty-two years.

—DJS

 

for

C
HARLES
A
RDAI

My hardboiled advocate.

Most talk. Charles acts.

 

Also by David J. Schow

NOVELS

The Kill Raff

The Shaft

Rock Breaks Scissors Cut

Bullets of Rain

Gun Work

Internecine

SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

Seeing Red

Lost Angels

Black Leather Required

Crypt Orchids

Eye

Zombie Jam

Havoc Swims Jaded

NONFICTION

The Outer Limits Companion

Wild Hairs
(columns and essays)

The Art of Drew Struzan

AS EDITOR

Silver Scream

The Lost Bloch Volume One: The Devil With You

The Lost Bloch Volume Two: Hell on Earth

The Lost Bloch Volume Three: Crimes & Punishments

Elvisland
(collection by John Farris)

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David J. Schow (right), showing off his tats with Thomas Jane, is the screenwriter of
The Crow
and the author of
Internecine
.

Author photo by Kerry Fitzmaurice

 

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.

An imprint of St. Martin's Press.

UPGUNNED
. Copyright © 2012 by David J. Schow. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.thomasdunnebooks.com

www.stmartins.com

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Schow, David J.

Upgunned: a novel / David J. Schow.

       p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-312-57137-5 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-4299-6248-3 (e-book)

  I.  Title.

PS3569.C5284N44 2012

813'.54—dc23

2011033769

eISBN 9781429962483

First Edition: February 2012