“It’s just a gas pedal and a brake, nothing fancy. A kid could drive it. Go on.”
He seemed so delighted by the idea, I couldn’t refuse him. I limped around to the driver’s side and eased my way into the seat. I hesitated, looking for somewhere to put my cane, but Berenbaum just took it and laid it across his lap as though he were always holding women’s canes for them, no big deal. I grabbed the wheel, and after Berenbaum released the parking brake, I used the muscles of my right thigh and knee to push my BK prosthetic against the accelerator. The cart puttered forward.
“Straight on, then make a left at soundstage twenty. Also, feel free to go faster than this.”
I pressed down harder. It felt odd without direct contact between me and the accelerator. Also I hadn’t been behind the wheel of anything in over a year, and now here I was, driving David Berenbaum around in a golf cart.
“We’re headed to the editing suite,” he said. “We’re behind schedule, so I want to stay nearby. Is that all right with you?”
“That’s fine,” I said. “As long as it’s safe to talk freely there.”
“I’ll kick everyone out of the room for a few. You know, you can really floor it if you want, it’s okay.”
I looked dubiously down at the golf cart, which was starting to vibrate and whine like a frightened dog. “Honestly, I’m afraid this thing is going to fall apart under me.”
“Don’t talk about Bessie that way,” said Berenbaum. “She’s a good soldier. Pedal to the metal, come on.”
“I—”
Without further ado, Berenbaum simply bumped my right leg with his left, knocking my prosthetic foot off the accelerator and stomping down on the pedal himself. The high-pitched shriek of alarm I made as I clung to the steering wheel made him laugh out loud. I’m sure the average grandmother could still have outrun the thing on foot, but to me it was exhilarating, steering while he accelerated, trusting him to brake in time to keep us from hitting anyone.
“Remind me to never get behind you on the freeway,” he said.
Soon we came to the northeastern edge of the lot, to a larger bungalow than the one where his office was located. I guided the golf cart into a parking space; he put on the brake and helped me out of the driver’s seat. He also held open the door to the building for me, and while that sort of thing would have driven me nuts a year ago, I had recently stopped resenting people for making my life easier.
The editing suite itself looked more like a living room than an office. A large flat-screen TV hung on a wall opposite a comfy--looking caramel couch, and a skinny college-aged kid sat at a computer desk with an older man leaning over his shoulder, staring at the screen. Nearby a young woman was writing on a spiral pad, looking stressed out and sleep deprived. Three of the four walls were decorated with framed movie posters and photographs of people shaking hands; the fourth was almost entirely covered in stills from Black Powder.
“Can we have the room for a few?” said Berenbaum to the other three. They were gone almost before he finished his sentence, and Berenbaum looked back at me, gesturing to the couch.
I sat at one end, he sat at the other, and he glanced to make sure the door was shut before letting out a long exhale and turning to the subject at hand. All his boyish good humor vanished.
“Vivian Chandler is probably planning to kill you,” he said. “In fact, I’m worried that she may have killed you already.”
19
“What do you mean, she might have killed me already?” I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or have a panic attack.
“Did she ever touch you, even briefly?”
“No. Caryl warned me about that the minute we went into her room.”
“Oh, Caryl was with you?” He gave a deep sigh. “Thank God. If Vivian had cursed you, Caryl would have known right away and would probably have executed her on the spot. Vivian’s on thin ice with the Project as it is.”
“Why would she want to curse me?”
“Why do cats chase birds? If someone is no use to her, it’s just . . . a thing she does.”
“And she’s never been caught?”
“There’s never anything to investigate. She shakes a guy’s hand and a week later his aorta ruptures, or he has a stroke, or something else perfectly plausible. It’s her specialty. Did you know Martin?”
“Who?”
“The guy who used to be in charge over at the Project. He was a real sweetheart. Drowned in his own blood because he was dumb enough to grab Vivian’s arm one day to keep her from tripping over a split in the sidewalk.”
“My God.”
“Generally she tries not to curse people who are obvious obstacles; she’s too smart for that.”
“Do you ever worry she’ll do something to you?”
“The studio would tank without me, and she knows it.”