CHAPTER 2
BEYOND THE BEVELED GLASS, THE IRON-BLACK clouds that had masked the sky now hid themselves behind gray veils of trailing mist. The wind went elsewhere with its lamentations, and the sodden trees stood as still and solemn as witnesses to a funeral cortege.
The gray day drifted into the eye of the storm, and from each of his three study windows, Ethan observed the mourning weather while meditating on the meaning of the apple in the context of the five bizarre items that had preceded it. Nature peered back at him through a milky cataract and, in sympathy with his inner vision, remained clouded.
He supposed the shiny apple might represent fame and wealth, the enviable life of his employer. Then the doll?s eye might be a worm of sorts, a symbol of a particular corruption at the core of fame, and therefore an accusation, indictment, and condemnation of the Face.
For twelve years, the actor had been the biggest box-office draw in the world. Since his first hit, the celebrity-mad media referred to him as the Face.
This flattering sobriquet supposedly had arisen simultaneously from the pens of numerous entertainment reporters in a shared [9] swoon of admiration for his charismatic good looks. In truth, no doubt a clever and perpetually sleepless publicist had called in favors and paid out cold cash to engineer this spontaneous acclamation and then to sustain it for more than a decade.
In a black-and-white Hollywood so distant in time and quality that contemporary moviegoers had only a little more knowledge of it than they had of the Spanish-American War, a fine actress named Greta Garbo had in her day been known as the Face. That flattery had been the work of a studio flack, but Garbo had proved to be more than mere flackery.
For ten months, Ethan had been chief of security for Channing Manheim, the Face of the new millennium. As yet he hadn?t glimpsed even the suggestion of Garboesque depths. The face of the Face seemed to be nearly all there was of Channing.
Ethan didn?t despise the actor. The Face was affable, as relaxed as might be a genuine demigod living with the sureness that life and youth were for him eternal.
The star?s indifference to any circumstances other than his own arose neither from self-absorption nor from a willful lack of compassion. Intellectual limitations denied him an awareness that other people had more than a single script page of backstory, and that their character arcs were too complex to be portrayed in ninety-eight minutes.
His occasional cruelties were never conscious.
If he hadn?t been who he was, however, and if he hadn?t been so striking in appearance, nothing that Channing said or did would have left an impression. In a Hollywood deli that named sandwiches after stars, Clark Gable might have been roast beef and Liederkranz on rye with horseradish; Cary Grant might have been peppered chicken breast with Swiss cheese on whole wheat with mustard; and Channing Manheim would have been watercress on lightly buttered toast.
Ethan didn?t actively dislike his employer, and he didn?t need to like him in order to want to protect him and keep him alive.
[10] If the eye in the apple was a symbol of corruption, it might represent the star?s ego inside the beautiful fruit.
Perhaps the doll?s eye didn?t stand for corruption, but for the downside of fame. A celebrity of Channing?s magnitude enjoyed little privacy and was always under scrutiny. The eye in the apple might be symbolic of the stalker?s eye-always watching, judging.
Crap. Cheap analysis. For all his somber brooding, in weather conducive to contemplation and to dark speculation, Ethan?s every observation seemed obvious and useless.
He ruminated on the apple-damp words: THE EYE IN THE APPLE? THE WATCHFUL WORM? THE WORM OF ORIGINAL SIN? DO WORDS HAVE ANY PURPOSE OTHER THAN CONFUSION?
Stumped, he was grateful when the phone rang at a few minutes past ten o?clock, drawing him away from the windows and to the desk.
Laura Moonves, an old friend from the LAPD, had been tracking down a license-plate number for him. She worked out of the Detective Support Division. Only once before in the past year had he presumed upon their friendship in this way.
?Got your pervert,? Laura said.
?Suspected pervert,? he corrected.
?The three-year-old Honda is registered to Rolf Herman Reynerd in West Hollywood.? She spelled each name and gave him an address.
?What kind of parents Rolf a kid??
Laura knew all about names. ?It?s not so bad. Nicely masculine, in fact. In Old German, it means ?famous wolf.? Ethan, of course, means ?permanent, assured.? ?
Two years ago, they?d dated. For Laura, Ethan had been anything but permanent, assured. She?d have liked permanence, some assurance. He had been too wounded to provide what she wanted. Or too stupid.
?Looked him up for a rap sheet,? Laura said, ?but he?s clean. DMV says ?hair brown, eyes blue.? Says ?sex male.? I like sex male. I don?t [11] get enough sex male. Height six-one, weight one-eighty. DOB-June sixth, nineteen seventy-two, which makes him thirty-one.?
Ethan had it all on a notepad. ?Thanks, Laura. I owe you one.?
?So then tell me-how big?s his charlie??
?Isn?t that in the DMV file??
?I don?t mean Rolf?s charlie. I mean Manheim?s. Does it hang to his ankles or just to his knees??
?I?ve never seen his charlie, but he doesn?t seem to have any trouble walking.?
?Cookie, maybe you can introduce us sometime.?
Ethan had never known why she called him Cookie. ?The man would bore your ass off, Laura, and that?s the truth.?
?Pretty as he is, I wouldn?t need conversation. I?d just shove a rag in his mouth, tape his lips shut, and off we?d go to paradise.?
?Basically it?s my job to keep people like you away from him.?
?Truman derives from two Old English words,? she said. ?It means ?steadfast, loyal, trustworthy, constant.? ?
?You can?t get a date with the Face by making me feel guilty. Besides, when wasn?t I loyal and trustworthy??
?Cookie, two out of four doesn?t mean you deserve your name.?
?You were too good for me anyway, Laura. You?ve got more to give than a shlump like me can appreciate.?
?I?d like to see your old Ten Card,? she said, referring to his record of service on the force. ?Must be more brown stars for ass kissing on that baby than any hundred other cards in the history of the job.?
?If you?re done dissing me, I?ve been wondering Rolf. Famous wolf. Does that make sense? What?s a wolf have to do to get famous??
?Kill a lot of sheep, I guess.?
By the time Ethan said good-bye to Laura, a thin rain had begun to fall again. Without the ardor of a wind, the droplets barely kissed the study windows.
[12] Using the remote control, he switched on the TV and then the VCR. The tape was already loaded. He?d watched it six times before.
Exterior security cameras throughout the estate numbered eighty-six. Every house door and window and all the approaches across the grounds were monitored.
Only the north wall of the estate abutted public property. This long rampart, including the gate, was under surveillance by cameras mounted in the trees on the land directly across the street, a parcel also owned by Channing Manheim.