Children of Light

It had been dark for more than half an hour when Walker's road began its snaking descent from high desert to the canyon floor. His headlights were focused on a wall of deepening green that seemed to spin before him; the indifferently banked road felt as though it were falling away beneath his tires, threatening to send him out of control. At last, to his relief, the road ran flat and straight. He kept to the center, wary of animals, riders, pedestrians--and in less than a mile, he saw the hotel's sign.

The entrance was tree-lined; a fountain played in front of the foyer. Its buildings were of white stucco that glowed under decorative lamps. To Walker, after his weary drive, it seemed compounded of inviting sounds, liquefactious shadow and soft light.

An attendant took his bags, and at the desk he found himself expected. The room to which he was conducted was as tasteful as its elegant extravagance could bear, a showy red-and-black room that suggested Spanish melodrama, theatrical sex and violence. Carmen.

He felt anxious and weary. On a whim, he had come to a place to see a woman whom he had no business seeing. There were no other motives of consequence behind his journey.

He thought of Lu Anne and his heart rose. She was pale. She had dark-blue, saintly eyes and a smile that quivered between high drollery and madness. Nine years before, she had been nominated for an Academy Award in a supporting role; her subsequent career, like Walker's, had been disappointing.

Long ago, during their time together, he had written a script for Kate Chopin's novel, The Awakening, and every day of its writing, she had been with him or in his expectation--so that when the principal character, Edna Pontellier, was defined in scene and dialog, Lu Anne inhabited her utterly. In those days, they had dreamed of doing it together, but it had not turned out that way.

Time passed. Ten years after his last revision of the (continued on page 108)Children of Light (continued from page 100) script and six since his last conversation with Lu Anne, a package had been put together.

A young director named Walter Drogue had been engaged. The Awakening would be Drogue's fourth picture; he was generally accounted intelligent, original and aggressive. His father, also named Walter Drogue and one of the industry's living Buddhas, had been a director himself for almost 50 years.

After shooting most of the summer in New Orleans, the production had moved, for convenience and economy, to the Drogues' favorite Baja location at Bahía Honda.

•

In the shower, Walker hummed an old number:

"You take Sally, I'll take Sue. Makes no difference what you do, Cocaine."

The breeze that came through his open balcony window was fragrant with sage, jasmine, eucalyptus. He dressed and took out his works. He was preparing a snort when there sounded a knock on his door. He put the drugs away and went and opened it.

His visitor was Jon Axelrod, the unit manager.

"Hey, Gordon. Our house is"--he gave his hand a flip--"you know?"

"Thank you, Jon. I'm glad to be here. May I offer you some blow?"

Axelrod took a chair.

"I have to tell you the unit has very strict rules regarding the use of drugs. We report narcotics to the police. Otherwise, we can't get insurance."

Walker spread a few lines out on his mirror.

Axelrod removed a crisp U.S. 20 from his wallet, rolled it and took a snort. He was a heavy-set man with curly red hair and a square athlete's face. He regarded Walker from the corners of his eyes, which were blue and bright with fractured whimsy. Walker took a line for himself and they sat in reflective silence for a moment.

"Lu Anne is good," Axelrod said. "What I seen. Not a whole lot. But good stuff."

"How's her head?"

"She seems cheerful. She's working well. You know her husband just took their kids off on a trip."

"Where is she now?"

Axelrod smiled.

"Take a guess."

Lu Anne, Walker thought, would be either screwing in a hot tub or in church.

"In church?"

"Pretty good, fella. She went to church in town."

They finished what was on the mirror.

"How's Walter?" Walker asked.

"Walter's the same. What a talent, huh, Gordon?"

"Fuckin' A. Will he be happy to see me?"

"Maybe he's scared you might get to Lu Anne. Maybe not. You know how he is. And now they're all running scared, because Dongan Lowndes is down here doing a big magazine piece on the filming. They're afraid he'll make assholes out of them and screw the project."

"Well," Walker said, "how about that?"

Dongan Lowndes was a novelist whose single book, published eight years before, Walker had much admired. In the intervening years, Lowndes had turned to nonfiction writing for quality magazines. Most recently, he had been writing on such subjects as Las Vegas crooners, self-publicizing tycoons, incompetent politicians and the film industry. He wrote well and bitterly, and they feared him.

"Do the Drogues think they can swallow Lowndes, too?"

"They're hoping to charm him."

"Maybe with Lu Anne, huh?"

"This is a Charlie Freitag production, Gordon. You know Charlie. He figures. . . ." Axelrod raised his eyes heavenward. "Christ, who knows what he figures? He's a culture vulture. He thinks it's a class picture and he thinks Lowndes is a classy guy. He thinks he'll get a friendly piece and it'll be good for us."

"Whereas, in fact, Lowndes can't get it on to write and he hates to see people work. He'll nail them to a tree."

"Terrific, Gordo. You're just what we need down here. You can hassle Lu Anne and piss on the press. Get drunk, start fights. Just like old times, right?"

Walker said nothing.

"Wipe your nose good," Axelrod said. "We should go see Charlie."

•

The hotel restaurant had a terrace overlooking the bay. Adjoining it was a bluetiled lounge with a service bar and a few candlelit tables. Charlie Freitag, esteemed gentleman producer, rose when Axelrod and Walker came in. Walker was always happy to see Charlie, a pleasant, friendly man, possessed of a fatuous manner and many well-laid plans.

"Walter told me to greet you on his behalf," Charlie said to Walker. "He bids you welcome."

"Ah," Walker said.

"You know who I think you should meet?" Charlie asked Walker. "You should meet Dongan Lowndes. Know his work?"

"He's good," Walker said.

"I thought you'd know it," Freitag said proudly. "He's doing a piece on us for New York Arts. It can do us a lot of good where it counts."

They went to the dining room, where a party of two was sitting. Walker recognized one as Jack Best, unit publicity man. Best hated him relent-essly because of some drunken misadventure he could not recall.

"Mr. Lowndes," Charlie said, with the air of a man unwrapping first one expensive cigar and then another, "let me introduce Gordon Walker, who adapted The Awakening for the screen. You know Mr. Axelrod, I think."

Lowndes, when he leaned forward, turned out to be a bulky man with a pitted face and aviator spectacles. The hand he offered Walker was big and thick-fingered, like a countryman's.

"How're you?" Lowndes said. Walker saw that he was drunk and so was Best.

"This is Dongan Lowndes, Gordon," Freitag said. "Our guest from New York." He clapped Walker on the shoulder. "Listen," he said, "people are coming for a cookout at eight o'clock tomorrow. Carne asada under the stars. We'll talk."

"Great," Walker said.

Freitag took a quick, rueful look at his publicity man and went back to his table.

Walker smiled and murmured and made himself small. He was exhausted, propped upright by cocaine; he wanted people to be agreeable.

"We've been waiting for your girlfriend Lu Anne," Best said to Walker. "She just stood us up for dinner."

"It was very informally arranged," Lowndes said. He spoke in a quiet lowland Southern accent. His diction was ever so slightly blurred about the edges. "I probably misunderstood."

"No," Best said. "She's like that. A lot of them are. They don't care about the public anymore."

Studying Best across the table, Walker blundered into eye contact and suffered the full weight of his gratuitous hatred.

"I figured she was probably with him," the publicist said, indicating Walker and staring him down.

"C'mon, Jack," Axelrod said. "Be nice." He put a friendly arm around Best's shoulder and squeezed him.

"I like your novel," Walker told Lowndes, still wanting to please. "I mean your most recent one."

Lowndes raised his glass. "My one and only," he said.

(continued on page 128)Children of Light(continued from page 108)

Walker saw that he had said the wrong thing. He had intended to be polite, but Lowndes was offended.

"Walker," Best intoned. "Gordon Walker." He rose gravely and staggered off.

"I don't know what he's got against me," Walker said to Axelrod when Best was gone. "What's his problem?"

"His problem is you humiliated him in front of about a hundred people in Colorado two years ago. You don't remember?"

Walker tried remembering. "No," he said.

"Too bad," Lowndes said. "It must make a funny story."

"I think I'll have a drink," Walker said. He had decided that he was not among friends and that there would probably be some kind of trouble. He supposed that had been in the cards all along. "Have they closed the bar?"

The bar was still open. He found a waiter and ordered a drink. When he returned to the dining room, he saw Lu Anne seated next to Lowndes.

He walked toward them, his heart beating faster. He took the chair in which Axelrod had been sitting.

"Hello, Gordon," she said calmly.

Her casual greeting stung him like a blow.

"Hello, Lu Anne."

"We're having a wonderful time filming your script."

"That's great," he said.

"We have quite a famous author down here to write a piece on us, Gordon. Mr. Dongan Lowndes. From New York Arts. Have you all met?"

"Yes," Walker said. "We've met."

"You know, Mr. Lowndes," Lu Anne said, "there are whole passages from your novel that I can remember just by heart."

"Lu Anne used to be the president of the Good Ol' Girls' Good Ol' Book Club," Walker told Lowndes.

He watched Lowndes's slack mouth tighten. Walker's hands were trembling and he kept them out of sight.

"You know," Lowndes said, "a lot of times when Hollywood people tell you they like a book, it turns out they're referring to the studio synopsis." He laughed rather loudly at his own observation.

"That's not true of Lu Anne," Walker assured him. "She's a great reader."

"I wasn't thinking of Miss Verger. It's just something I began to run into."

"Was your book ever optioned?" Walker asked.

"Yes," Lowndes said. "There was something up. I don't know what became of it."

"It would have been difficult to film," Walker said.

"In those days, I suppose I would have been thrilled to have it made. Now I realize that the world can get on quite well without a film version of that book."

From where he sat, it seemed to Walker that Lowndes had moved his chair very close to Lu Anne's, that their bodies must be touching at some point and Lu Anne had made no move to draw away. She seemed to hang on his words.

"If we get into what the world can go without," Walker said to Lowndes, "God knows where we'll end."

Lowndes smiled. His left hand was below the table; Walker could not escape the thought that he was fondling Lu Anne. Yet, he thought, it might be all pure paranoia. As for her, he had imagined every reaction to his arrival except the smily indifference he was experiencing.

"So," he asked Lowndes, "how long have you been down?"

"Just a couple of days," Lowndes said.

Lu Anne nodded enthusiastically.

"Let me tell you a little about what I want to accomplish here," Lowndes told Walker. "You may find it interesting."

Walker saw Lu Anne and Lowndes join hands behind their chairs.

"Why not?" he said to Lowndes. "Why not do that?"

"I really don't think anyone's ever written a good piece on the making of a film until after the fact." Lowndes disengaged his hand from Lu Anne's and went into his pocket for cigarillos. Walker declined; Lowndes lighted one for himself. "My thinking is, if I hang around here--see a little of it all going on--I can get an insight into the process. So I did a little boning up on who everybody was. Now I can watch them do their thing. Then I can analyze the final product in terms of what I've seen."

Walker looked at Lu Anne to see if what the man was saying made sense to her. As far as he could tell, it did, and she seemed profoundly interested.

"I don't really understand," he told Lowndes. "That sounds very complicated and ambitious." He tried to imitate their smug, amiable demeanor. "It's a nice place to spend a couple of weeks. I'm sure it'll turn out fine."

"You decline to take me seriously, Mr. Walker," Lowndes said.

"I don't really understand," he told Lowndes. "That sounds very complicated and ambitious." He tried to imitate their smug, amiable demeanor. "It's a nice place to spend a couple of weeks. I'm sure it'll turn out fine."

"You decline to take me seriously, Mr. Walker," Lowndes said.

"I don't get it, that's all. I don't know what you're trying to prove."

"I have all your scripts," Lowndes told him. "Every one you ever wrote."

Walker stared across the table at Lowndes. The idea of this soft-spoken, pock-marked man's poring over the hundreds and hundreds of scenes that he had written made him feel violated and ashamed. All those scripts, he thought-- the record of petty arguments lost or won, half-assed stratagems and desperate compromises.

"How'd you like them?"

Lowndes smiled. "They're really very good, but some things about your writing make me wonder," he said.

"Ah," Walker said. "Wonder about what?"

"Well, how would you explain to me the screenwriter's role?"

"Oh, Christ," Walker said. "The screenwriter's role?"

"Is that the wrong terminology?"

"You have to believe that it's worth while," Walker told him, "and you have to accept the rules. You can't be a solitary or an obsessive. You can't despise your audience. It requires humility and it requires strength of character."

Lowndes turned to Lu Anne.

"Now, that's a very eloquent defense of an often derided trade, don't you think?"

"Oh, yes," Lu Anne said brightly.

"Very eloquent, Mr. Walker, and I believe every word of it. Only tell me this: Isn't it true that on screen, what you and I might call a cheap shot works infinitely better than on the page?"

Walker thought about it.

"Yeah, OK. That may be so."

"Doesn't it follow, then, that an instinct for the cheap shot is an advantage to a screenwriter?"

"Nobody makes you do it," Walker told Lowndes. "You're usually well paid. And there are things you can do. You can have your moments."

"I know that's true," Lowndes said. "I just wanted to make sure you felt as bad as you should." He punched Walker on the arm. "Hey, I'm only foolin' with you, man. I know you're a serious guy."

"How bad do you feel, Gordon?" Lu Anne asked.

"Medium," Walker said. "I'm going to turn in. I enjoyed our talk. I hope it was helpful."

"You bet," Lowndes told him.

As Walker got up, he saw Lowndes put his hand over Lu Anne's.

As he went down the corridor toward the opposite wing, he heard running steps on the carpet behind him. For an instant, he thought himself pursued by Lowndes; but before he turned, he knew it was Lu Anne.

As she crowded into his arms, she said, "Gordon, you have to help me. That man's been put over me."

"Put over you? I thought you were (continued on page 220)Children of Light (continued from page 128) going to let him climb on top of you. I've been high on you for five hundred miles and when I get here, you're playing footsie with that big swamp rat."

"Gordon, you just don't understand anything at all. I was fooling him," she said. "They said I had to. They said he'd write about me."

"Who said?"

"Well, Charlie. And Jack and Walter."

"Forget about him. I don't think it matters what he writes."

Standing with Lu Anne in his arms, Walker saw Lowndes appear at the far end of the corridor. Lowndes stood watching them with an expression that appeared vaguely benign. He was uglier upright, slope-shouldered and paunchy, a poor soul. After a moment, he went his way.

They made love for an hour or so. Once, she told him that she had joy in his arrival; her words, while their spell lasted, swept away his weariness and anger. Later, they slept.

When he awoke, the sun was up. He quietly went to his stash for cocaine. He took the drug and his works into the bathroom.

As he was chopping the crystalline powder, the door flew open and she was standing in the bathroom doorway, laughing.

"Aha!" she cried. "Gotcha!"

•

In a pink bungalow at the top of the hill, the Drogues were whiling away the afternoon watching films in which people walked into the sea and disappeared forever. They had watched Bruce Dern in Coming Home, Joan Crawford in Humoresque and James Mason in the second A Star Is Born. Fredric March and Janet Gaynor were on the outsized screen before them. March stood clad in his bathrobe in the character of Norman Maine.

"Hey," he called to Janet Gaynor, "mind if I take just one more look?"

Old Drogue picked up the remotecontrol panel and stopped the frame. His eyes were filled with tears.

"Listen to me," he told the others.

"This guy was the greatest screen actor of all time. That line--the emotion under it--controlled, played exactly to movie scale. There was never anyone greater."

"Wellman was good," the younger Drogue said.

"The vulnerability," old Drogue said, "the gentleness, the class of the man. Never again a Fredric March. What a guy!" He let the film proceed and settled back. "You see what I mean?"

"Look at the nostrils on Gaynor," young Drogue said. "She acted with her nose."

"Do I have to remind you that she started before sound?"

The younger Drogue studied the images on the screen.

"Her face suggests a cunt," he said.

The old man sighed.

"I don't know why it does," young Drogue said. "It just does."

"You're a guttersnipe," said Drogue Sr.

"Something about the woman's face, Dad. It makes a crude but obvious reference to her genitals."

"Some people are brought up in poverty," the old man said, "and they become cultivated people. Others grow up spoiled rotten and become guttersnipes."

"You look at her face," young Drogue declared, "and you think of her pussy." His brows were knotted in concentration. "Can that be the primal element in female sexual attraction? Can it explain Janet Gaynor?"

On the screen, Fredric March's body double was wading toward the setting sun. This time it was Drogue Jr. who stopped the frame.

"This one was the best," his father said smugly. "Of all the walk-into-the-ocean movies, this one was it."

"In the Mason-and-Judy Garland," his son told him, "the Cukor version, the scene's the same. Frame for frame."

"The scene is conditioned by what's around it. The other one is a Judy Garland film. Entirely different thing."

Young Drogue went pensive.

"Well," he said, "with Judy Garland, now, see, she...."

"Stop," his father said sternly. "I don't want to hear it. Whatever idiotic obscenities you were about to utter--keep them to yourself. I don't want to hear your sexual theories about Judy Garland. I want to go to my grave without hearing them."

They watched Norman Maine's funeral and the end of the film.

The chimes of the main door sounded. Drogue minor rose to his feet and lifted the drawn shutters to peer out.

"It's Jack Best," he said. "But he doesn't look his Jack best, ho, ho."

"Please don't be rude to Jack," his father told him. "He has a job, the same as you. And he's been doing stills for us."

"He's been underfoot with his stills," the young director said, going to the door.

He opened it to Best, who did, in fact, appear ill and unhappy.

"Jack, baby," he said cheerfully, "did you come for a drink?"

Best mastered a slight spasm of his jaw. He took a drink from young Drogue and swallowed half of it.

"So what do you want here, Jack? Where's your camera?" Drogue Jr. asked.

Best finished his drink and looked lugubriously about the room. His eyes were bright with the squamous resentment of an old snapping turtle.

"We got trouble," he said. He was holding a magazine in his hand. He opened it to reveal a photograph that had been inserted between its pages. He put the magazine aside and clutched the photograph to his breast.

(continued overleaf)

"What's the pic, Jack?" young Drogue asked.

Best looked from father to son in a state of agitation. He showed his teeth like a frightened pony.

"Lu Anne Verger," Jack said. "And Walker. They been shacked up all night and day."

The Drogues exchanged glances.

"Yeah?" young Drogue asked. "So what?"

Best tried to hand his picture to the old man. His son intercepted it.

"Walker been mistreating you, Jack?" young Drogue asked, turning the picture face up. "He's such a troublesome guy."

He looked at the picture for some time.

The photographs were sunlit shots of Lu Anne and Walker naked in bed. Walker was holding a small, shiny rectangle while Lu Anne sniffed at its surface through a straw.

Young Drogue handed the picture to his father. "So what's this, Jack? A handout?"

"They got a whole bunch like this," the aged publicist croaked urgently. "It's a shakedown." He turned rather desperately to old Drogue. "Right, Wally? Like when Eddie Ritz had those pictures of Mitch? That's what it's like."

Drogue Sr. looked from the picture to his old friend. He shook his head sadly, put the print down and walked out of the bungalow.

Finding himself abandoned to the director, Best began to shake. The ice in his glass tinkled audibly.

Young Drogue watched him with a bemused smile. "This is odd; I think these were taken very recently. I think they were taken here. On our very own location."

"It's a shakedown," Best croaked.

"I see," young Drogue said. "What shall we do, Jack? I mean, I've heard of these things happening in the business. But I've never actually encountered it until now."

Jack cleared his throat. He looked from side to side in a conspiratorial fashion.

Drogue put a cupped hand to the side of his mouth.

"You can talk here, Jack," he whispered.

"Righto. It was Madriaga," Jack told him. Madriaga was the jefe of the unit's Mexican teamsters, a vicious, clownish former policeman. "He come up to me. He was a cop, you see. They went to him. The ones that took the shots. He come to me. They want five big ones. Or they put it out. The reporter that's here. They would give it to him. And around. Europe. England and France. World-wide. It's like before. You could ask your father. When Eddie Ritz had those pictures of Mitch."

"Bless my soul, Jack," Drogue said, "I can't understand a word you're saying. What are big ones, Jack?"

"A grand," Jack said urgently. "A thou." His voice rose in panic. "A thousand dollars."

Drogue took Jack's empty glass from his unsteady hand.

"Jack," Drogue Jr. said, "that's blackmail. Who would do such a thing? Not someone on our set. Not one of our own."

Best began to titter and chatter in an almost simian fashion.

"Plenty of them. They don't have any--they don't care anymore. They treat you like dirt. Just look around. They aren't any good, Walter. They'll make bad publicity. Shit where they eat."

"I'm no good at this," Drogue said dejectedly. "I can't even follow you. What do we have to do, Jack? Will it involve telling Charlie? Will I have to give you money?"

"I could tell you," Jack stammered, "if you ask your old man. I can handle them. Shakedown artists. I got ways. Like when they had Mitch's picture."

"The inside of a Mexican jail," Drogue said with hearty indignation. "That's the place for these dirty blackmailers. How about that, Jack?"

"No," Jack said.

"No?" Young Drogue picked up the wireless house telephone on one of his bookshelves and began to dial. "You think not, Jack? Think we should pass on that one? A no-no?"

"No cops," Jack said. "I mean, Mexican cops? I mean, you'd gotta be crazy. You gotta leave it to me. I can handle it."

"Axelrod!" Drogue said into the receiver. "I got this grotesque situation to cope with. You want to give me a hand?" He looked up at Best. "A man's supposed to be an artist," he said ill-temperedly. "Instead, he ends up as a carny boss."

Best could not reply. His face was trapped in the rictus horribilis of his own smile. No matter how hard he attempted to disengage his features from their merry aspect, he was unable to do so.

•

A brisk, alarming triple knock sounded against the bungalow door. The sound was muted and urgent and had nothing of good news about it.

Walker had been reading New York Arts on the patio while Lu Anne slept. He put the magazine aside and opened the door to Axelrod.

"You're a stupid fuck," the unit manager told him.

Walker was taken aback. Openings like Axelrod's usually presaged a narrative of nights forgotten, and he was quite certain that he could account for the entire period since his arrival.

"Look at this," Axelrod said and handed him the envelope of photographs. When Walker, had looked at them, he went back to the patio table where he had been reading and sat back down. Axelrod followed him.

"Taken today, right, Gordon?"

"No question."

"You never heard of shades?"

Walker looked out to sea. A darkening cloud bank hovered on the horizon, supporting a gorgeous half rainbow.

"Basic precautions, Gordon," Axelrod said in an aggrieved tone. "A little discretion. You think you have nothing but friends around here?"

"I thought you got to do everything and they didn't care anymore."

"Did you, Gordon? I got news for you. Even today there are things you don't do. You don't snort blow in your front window with the shades up. If you do, you can find yourself in a seven-million-dollar production without a dime's worth of insurance. If our insurers, Gordon--you listening to me?--if our insurers had these pictures, they would cancel our insurance forthwith and this thing could close down today."

"That's a worst-case scenario, isn't it?"

"Gordon, Gordon," Axelrod said with a mirthless smile, "this could have been a bad case. Remember Wright's picture for Famous Studios? Coke on the set? The stockholders went apeshit. And it's not only a matter of insurance. There's a theory around that ripped people make lousy movies."

"Lu Anne's asleep," Walker said. He rested his cheekbones on his fists and looked down at the uppermost print. "They're in color," he said. "Far out."

"What did you think, asshole? That they'd have a black border? Look at yourself. You look like a vampire."

Walker found the image troubling.

"The straw came out nice. Like a little barber pole." He looked up at Axelrod. "Who took them?"

"Jack Best."

Walker nodded. "I thought it might have been Jack. Trying to relive his heroic past."

"He used to get pictures back for us all the time. If you wanted pictures back, you went to him. Half the time, he probably set the people up. This time, he claimed his principals wanted five thousand dollars. Depression prices. So I went over and yelled at him and he folded up."

"Didn't Walter believe him?"

"Only an idiot would have believed him. You could see his mind work through the holes in his head."

"It's sad," Walker said. "I mean, he taught me how to read a racing form. Poor Jack. Tell him he can take my picture any time he wants, but I wish he'd leave my friends alone."

"He's finished, Gordon. He's going where Winchell and Kilgallen went."

"A tragedy," Walker said. "Do we have all the pictures back?"

"He says he put one print under Dongan Lowndes's door."

"Do we have to worry about what Lowndes thinks of us?" Walker asked. "He's supposed to be a gentleman. He'll give us the picture back."

"Gordon," Axelrod said, "let me tell you something that's also funny. I just tossed the gentleman's room. I went through his gear as completely as I could without leaving traces. The print's not there."

"Maybe Jack was lying."

"I don't think so." Axelrod took a chair in the shade. "I think Lowndes has it. If he was going to give it back, he would have done it by now."

"That's not very nice of him," Walker said. "But then, he isn't very nice, is he?"

"Not in my opinion. In my opinion, he's a smart prick."

"He's worse than that," Walker said. "He's an unhappy writer."

Axelrod mixed himself a drink from the setup on the umbrella table beside him.

"It's not good," he said. "These shots kick around--sooner or later, they end up in print."

Walker watched the sea-borne rainbow fade into blue-gray cloud.

"It wouldn't hurt this picture," Axelrod went on. "It wouldn't help you much. But I wouldn't think it could hurt you much, either."

"People would get the impression I take drugs." Walker turned toward the bungalow's bedroom window. The blinds were closed. "But Lu Anne may be in a divorce court presently."

"Careerwise also," Axelrod said. "If it got around that she had this--you understand me."

"They're such depressing pictures," Walker said, raising one with his thumb and forefinger.

"Some things you do," Axelrod observed, "you don't want to see yourself doing."

Walker stared at the picture and shook his head in disgust.

"She caught me with it," he explained. "It's very hard to say no to Lu Anne."

"I know that, Gordon. I understand."

"It's very irritating, Lowndes's keeping the picture. What a cheap stunt!"

"No class," Axelrod said. "No self-respect."

Walker looked out to sea.

"Of course, it might make a good lead," he said, "if he was writing a certain kind of story."

"You think so?"

"I'm writing for New York Arts," Walker said. "Here's my lead: 'On the third day after my arrival at The Awakening's Bahía Honda location, a package arrived at my feet, having been slid under my bungalow door. Naturally, I assumed it contained the daily trades . . . ha-ha, jape, flourish, etc. Imagine my--and so forth--when upon opening it I find it to contain a photograph of two of the principal artists naked in bed, apparently in the act of scoffing I know not what, tooting up, coke and the movies, sordidness and blackmail, hooray for Hollywood, movies as metaphor, crazy California, decline of the West, ad astra ad nauseam!' You like my lead?"

"It's a colorful lead." Axelrod thought about it. "As a completely blind item," he said, "it might not be so bad. It might even be a little . . . good." He shrugged.

"Man, Lowndes is going to make this location look like Bosch's Garden."

"We gotta nudge Mr. Lowndes a little. So he gives us back our print. I mean," Axelrod said, "it would be great not to have to tell Charlie about this."

"What we have to do," Walker said, "is make him understand he's playing in the wrong league. Make him understand his position."

"Right," Axelrod said.

"We have to make him look down and see where he's liable to fall. We'll tell him how we see the big ones and the little ones fall every day. Like sparrows."

"Yeah," Axelrod said. He smiled. "Let's tell him that, Gordon."

•

Around sundown, Axelrod walked into the Drogues' bungalow with his envelope full of photographs. Young Drogue was watching a Spanish-language soap opera on their television set. Axelrod set the envelope before him.

"Should I be overjoyed?" Drogue asked. "Is this all of them?"

"All except one print. Dongan Lowndes has it."

"Jack gave it to Lowndes? But that's ridiculous."

Axelrod presented Walker's theory of the picturesque lead with Jack's photograph to support it.

"Somehow," Drogue said, "I find it hard to take this dopey snapshot seriously."

"According to Walker, Lowndes is gonna really dish it to us. He says the N.Y.A. story will make this location look like Butch's Garden."

"What's that?" Drogue asked. "Some S/M joint known only to weirdos?"

"He means Lowndes is gonna make us look bad. That's what he thinks."

"Christ," Drogue said irritably. "Does Charlie know about this? He'll make the night horrible with his cries."

Axelrod shook his head.

"I think it's a minor matter," Drogue said. "It would be nice if we could sort it out without bothering Charlie. Can you get the damn thing back?"

"We're gonna suggest to Mr. Lowndes that he do the right thing."

"Don't start bouncing him off walls. Then we'll really be in the shit."

"What I'd like to do," Axelrod said, "I'd like to have the local police athletic league take his head for a couple of laps around the municipal toilet bowl. Except we'd have to pay mordida and the pigs would probably swipe the print."

"If he's unfriendly," Drogue said, "be my guest. Put the screws to him. Just don't give him anything to sue about."

"We're gonna make him sweat," Axelrod said. "If he doesn't deliver, maybe we should throw him off the set."

"Let's see how it goes," Drogue said. "Charlie's instinct will be to buy him out. Put him on the payroll. Option his next book. Wait and see."

"You should advise him not to do that."

"I can't advise him," Drogue said. "My father can advise him. Not me."

"What are you gonna do with Jack?"

"I should pour salt down his throat and make him walk to Tijuana. But since he's Dad's old pal, I guess I'll pay him off and fly him home. For my father's sake."

"That's Christlike."

"Damn right," Drogue Jr. said. He picked up one of the photographs and examined it. "This is a truly ugly picture," he said. "I'll never be able to look at these two turkeys in the same light."

"Walker's into it."

"Walker's a bum," Drogue said. "He's going to end up like Jack."

"A lot of them do," Axelrod said.

"He's got no survival skills," the director said. He looked at the picture again. "Neither of them have."

•

Bathed, anointed, as cool and clean as chastity, Lu Anne climbed the lighted path. Walker came behind her, walking carefully. They passed a garden bar and lighted tennis courts, following a yucca-bordered path that led to Charlie Freitag's casita.

The casita's sunken patio was lit by flickering torches, set at intervals along its border of volcanic stone. A party of grim mariachis was performing; its music seemed strangely muted to Lu Anne, as if each brass note were instantly carried off on a swift, impalpable wind.

Axelrod appeared from the darkness. He smiled at her and hurried past, approaching Walker.

Across the patio from the musicians was a walled barbecue pit where white-capped chefs labored over a spitted joint. The air was smoky with roasting beef. A great caldron of boiling sauce stood to one side of the pit and, nearby, a company of men in toques blancs sharpened carving knives. The waiters had set up a buffet and a long, well-attended bar.

Axelrod and Walker were conspiring.

"Fuck him, then," she heard Walker say. "Is he here?"

"Not yet," Axelrod answered. He turned to Lu Anne. "How are you, Lu?"

"A little tired," she said. "Is everything all right?" In the patio below, Freitag's guests were mingling, carrying their drinks among the cloth-covered buffet tables.

"It's fine," Walker assured her. "Just. . . ." He paused; both he and Axelrod were watching Lowndes descend into the garden, making for the bar.

"Let's get down there," Axelrod said.

Smiling, unclear of vision, Lu Anne strolled among the guests with Walker. He was conducting her to Charlie.

She went to him in expectation of an elaborate greeting, but he simply took her by the hand. His fondness seemed so genuine that it made her sad. She thought she could feel Walker beside her grow tense with a suitor's unease, as though Charlie were his rival.

"You lovely girl," Charlie said. "You champion." He turned to Walker. "Want to ask me if I like the movie?"

"You like it," Walker said. "Have you spoken to Walter?"

In the grip of his emotion, Freitag turned and sought young Drogue among his guests.

"Walter," he fairly shouted.

Drogue made his way to Freitag's side. Charlie raised his glass. "Like father, like son."

"It ain't over till it's over, Charlie," young Drogue said.

Freitag's eye fell on Lowndes.

"Mr. Lowndes," he said, "you've been lucky. You've seen this business at its best. You've seen a fine picture made by serious people, and it doesn't get any better than that."

"I wouldn't have missed it for the world," Lowndes said thickly.

"Maybe we can get you to come out and work with us someday."

Ignoring Charlie, Lowndes looked at Lu Anne for a moment and turned to Walker.

"Would I like it?" he asked. "What do you think?"

"Well," Walker told him, "it beats not working." Everyone laughed, as though he had said something funny.

"Hey, Charlie," Axelrod asked, putting his arm under Lowndes's, "how long has it been since we had to buy pictures off some wise fuck?"

"What kind of pictures?" Freitag asked.

"Yes," Lu Anne asked, "what kind of pictures?"

"I don't know what you goddamn people are talking about," Lowndes said. "What are you so worried about? Isn't there a clear conscience in the crowd here?"

"Don't follow the counsels of drink, Lowndes," Walker said. "Liquor's not your friend. Tomorrow, we'll have a conference call--you and Axelrod and your people at N.Y.A. It'll work out great. Everybody will make out great."

"What pictures?" Freitag asked. "What pictures have you got, Mr. Lowndes?"

"Charlie," old Drogue said, "let them work it out."

Lu Anne went to Freitag and took his arm. Lowndes watched her hungrily.

"He's a reporter," Lu Anne said. "He must have a hot picture and he wants to be paid off."

The information seemed to depress Freitag utterly.

"How do you like the sound of that, Lowndes?" Walker asked. "He can write the birds out of the trees, this guy. The good fairies brought him insight and invention and sound. But the bad fairy took his balls away."

"Don't provoke him," Lu Anne said.

"So here he is," Walker said. "He's got all this great stuff going for him. He's a first-class writer and a fourth-rate human being. He doesn't have the confidence or the manliness to manage his own talent. He doesn't have the balls."

"But you would, would you?" young Drogue asked Walker. "If you were as good as you claim he is, you'd be one terrific human being. Is that what you're telling us?"

"If I was that good," Walker said, "I would never waste a moment. I'd be at it night and day. I'd never take a drink or drug myself or be with a woman I didn't love."

"Listen to him," old Drogue said. "You try to tell people writers are assholes and nobody listens."

"Lu Anne, you're a sweet woman," Lowndes said. "You don't belong with this pack of dogs."

Freitag gasped.

"All right, fucker," Axelrod said. He tried to take hold of Lowndes, but the writer got by him.

Lowndes had bulled his way past Axelrod and was headed for Freitag and Lu Anne. He had lost his glasses and he staggered.

Her teeth clenched, Lu Anne made a swipe at Lowndes's face.

Lowndes raised his hands to protect himself. Walker stepped in and gently pulled her back.

Lowndes had backed up against an adjoining table. He had lowered his head into something like a boxer's stance, and his fists, only half clenched, were raised before his face. His pale-brown, myopic eyes, tearful and angry like a child's, darted from side to side, trying to focus on the enemy center.

It was enraging to see the man in such a posture, Walker thought. His insides churned with anger and with pity and loathing.

"Get away from me, you bitch," Lowndes shouted at Lu Anne.

Walker was uncertain whether Lowndes had tried to strike her or not. He hesitated for a moment, decided the loose fists were provocation enough and decided to go, coke confident. He felt drunk and sick and ashamed of himself; Lowndes would pay for it. He heard Axelrod shout something about the picture and Freitag cry that enough was enough. Walker had lived through some dozen bar fights. He was not an innocent and Lowndes was offensive and, he imagined, easy. He was making fierce faces, his right hand floating somewhere back of beyond in the ever-receding future, when Lowndes decked him with a bone-ended ham fist all the way from Escambia County. There was a brief interval during which he was unable to determine whether he was still or in motion.

"You bastards!" Lowndes was screaming. "You bloodsuckers. I'll kill every one of you."

Walker felt the side of his face. He suffered the brief impression of having been shot in the head. After a moment, he concluded that he had not been mortally wounded, but there was blood on his face and not much vision in his left eye. He struggled to stand and after an effort succeeded. No one helped him. He reached into his pocket for his handkerchief; his hand came out glistening with coke crystals. He licked them off.

When he stood up, he saw that Axelrod had Lowndes by an arm and was forcing him to his knees.

"Shake him!" Axelrod was shouting. "Chrissakes!"

Axelrod held fast to Lowndes's formidable right arm; Freitag, trembling with rage, was holding him by the left. Freitag's face was pale and contorted, his teeth bared. It was a side of Charlie that Walker had never seen before. He stared in confusion at the mass of struggling men, trying to clear his head. Everyone seemed to be shouting at him. Lu Anne was backing away, expressionless. Walker started toward her.

"Walker," Freitag said calmly. "Get it. He's wearing it."

As Axelrod and Freitag held the writer down, Walker ripped open Lowndes's aloha shirt. Axelrod swore in exasperation. "Hey, try his wallet, will you? You think he's got it taped to his ass?"

Walker got Lowndes's wallet and, sure enough, there it was, bent at the edge because it was a little too large to fit into the billfold. He took it out and tossed the wallet aside and rested on one knee. Then he stood up and handed the picture to Freitag without looking at it.

The producer looked at the photograph and then at Walker in the manner of an official inspecting a passport.

"It's us, Charlie," Walker said. "What can I tell you?"

"Europe," Axelrod said. "Some rag like Oggi." He was breathing heavily, holding Lowndes by the arm. "They'd eat it up."

"Yes," Freitag said primly. With a shudder of rectitude, he ripped the picture in half.

In the next instant, Lu Anne turned and bolted down the path. Walker hesitated for a moment and went after her. He lost her at the first forking of the lighted stone pathway. When he heard a car engine turn, he sprinted for the driveway.

Racing through the deserted lobby, he saw one of the company's limousines make a turn in the circular driveway before the entrance. Lu Anne was in the back seat. As the car accelerated toward the main gate, Walker overtook it in one desperate rally and pounded on the rear door. She had it stop for him. Panting, he climbed inside beside her.

After they had driven for a while, she leaned against him and closed her eyes. He felt as though her weariness were compounded with his own.

"He had a picture of us, didn't he?" she asked.

"It doesn't matter anymore."

When they passed the gate, another car fell in behind them. Walker asked the driver who it was.

"La seguridad," the driver told him.

"Why would he want a picture like that?" she asked. "Of us? He didn't seem like that kind of man."

"He wasn't," Walker said. "He just got drunk and foolish. Anyway," he told her, "he's fucked."

"Gordon," Lu Anne said, "I think I need a rest, you know?"

"We'll drive until it's light," Walker said. "Then we'll go back."

"We'll rest," Lu Anne said in a lifeless voice. "And then we'll pray. We'll have a quiet hour."

"You bet," Walker said.

"They're all running scared, because Lowndes is down here doing a big magazine piece on the filming.'"

"Lowndes smiled. His left hand was below the table; Walker thought he was fondling Lu Anne."

Playboy College Fiction Contest

First prize, $3000 and publication in the October 1986 issue; second prize, $500 and a year's subscription; third prize, a year's subscription. The rules: 1. No purchase necessary. 2. Contest is open to all college students--no age limit. Employees of Playboy Enterprises, Inc., its agents, affiliates and families are not eligible. 3. To enter, submit your typed, double-spaced manuscript of 25 pages or fewer with a 3" × 5" card listing your name, age, college affiliation, permanent home address and phone number to Playboy College Fiction Contest, 919 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60611. Only one entry per person. All entries must be original works of fiction and must be postmarked by January 1, 1986. Mutilated or illegible entries will be disqualified. 4. Prizes will be awarded to those entrants whose stories meet Playboy's standard for quality. Playboy reserves the right to withhold prizes if the submitted entries do not meet its usual standards for publication. All decisions of the judges are final. 5. Winning contestants will be notified by mail and may be obligated to sign and return an affidavit of eligibility within 30 days of notification. In the event of noncompliance within this time period, alternate winners may be selected. Any prize-notification letter or any prize returned to Playboy Enterprises, Inc., and undeliverable may be awarded to an alternate winner. 6. Playboy reserves the right to edit the first-prize-winning story for publication. 7. Entry authorizes use of any prize winner's name, photograph and biographical information by Playboy Enterprises, Inc., without further compensation to the winner. 8. Playboy reserves the right to publish the winning entries in the U.S. and foreign editions of Playboy and to reprint the winning entries in any English-language or foreign-edition anthologies or compilations of Playboy material. 9. Contest is subject to all Federal, state and local laws and regulations. Taxes on prizes are the sole responsibility of winning contestants. Void where prohibited by law. 10. All manuscripts become the property of Playboy Enterprises, Inc., and will not be returned. For a list of winners, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to Playboy Enterprises, Inc., College Fiction Contest, 919 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60611.