Chapter Thirteen #2
shook it eagerly. What had he expected—British hauteur? Libby
looked apprehensive too. Well, Laurie couldn't blame them, given
the performance he'd turned in at Ealing over the past couple of
weeks. There was no need for that now. Provided everything was in
place exactly as he had demanded, he could afford to be nice. He
nodded at Bailey, actor to actor. “It's a pleasure to meet
you.”
“Oh. You too.” Bailey pushed fair hair off his brow—just
stopped short of tucking a strand of it behind his ear. Sasha bit
back amusement. That had taken even less time than usual. Bailey
visibly melted at Laurie for a moment longer, then gave an odd
nervous twitch. “I'm sorry you only got me,” he said. “For your
welcome committee, I mean. Wesley or Nicole should've come,
but—”
“Wesley and Nicole are busy,” Libby interrupted him brusquely.
“Good to see you at last, Mr Fitzroy. Price, this is Mr Fitzroy’s
assistant, Sasha Petrica.” She stuck out a cursory hand in Sasha's
direction. “I gather you had trouble at immigration.”
My assistant! Laurie swallowed hard.
He only had himself to blame. That was how he had sold Sasha to
them. I love him, and he's being stalked
by Romanian thugs wouldn't have cut it at
all. A work ticket had been the easiest way to get him in—and Sasha
had agreed, but to hear it coldly stated was a shock. “Just a
routine check,” he said, avoiding Sasha's eyes. “Look, it's been a
long flight. Can we get going?”
“Yes, of course.” She hooked a hand through Laurie's arm and
set off with him. “Your personal effects have all been sent ahead
to your accommodation. I must say, it wasn't easy to find you a
house in that particular development.”
“But you managed?”
“Yes. It's unprecedented, though. Mr Brett expects a great deal
from you.” She slowed her pace when Laurie did, followed his
anxious glance around him. “Oh, don't worry—your other requests
have been put into place as well.”
Sasha
trailed them at a few yards’ distance, Bailey at his side. Bailey
clearly felt he'd drawn the short straw, but was too polite to say
so. “Sorry the CBP hassled you, man. Those dudes are
fascists.”
“Not really,” Sasha said mildly. “They were quite decent to me.
Just doing their jobs.”
Bailey chuckled. “Quite
decent... Man, you sound so
British!”
And you sound as if you were brought up by Keanu Reeves on
the set of Bill and Ted. Sasha restrained
himself. There was something disorganised and sweet about Bailey,
as if he felt more of a stranger here than Sasha did himself,
trailing along in the wake of his boss and the new star of
Blood Moon. And if he was
the sidekick vamp, it could only be in contrast to the two
flamboyant leads—he was poignantly handsome, almost pretty, bright
hair shading long-lashed hazel eyes. “I'm from Romania,” Sasha
said, trying to make conversation. “To English people, I don't
sound very English at all.”
“No way. That's so interesting.”
It
plainly wasn't. Bailey was watching Laurie with the fixity of new
love. Sasha had seen this happen too often to mind, and he
shouldered his rucksack and carried on philosophically through the
crowd. There was something lonely about watching the Laurie effect
this time, about being outside that charmed circle. Involuntarily
Sasha glanced down at himself, a check that he did still
exist...
Glass
doors slid aside. The air-conditioned cool evaporated and heat
seized him in a huge fist. A sky whose intensity of blue he had
never imagined rose up and over him. A five-lane highway—World Way,
leading onto Sepulveda Boulevard, he knew, although the label on
the map meant nothing in the face of this dazzling reality—roared
ten feet away from him, palm trees waving in the dust. Rippling
heat-haze distorted the horizon, tawny shimmering brown against
sapphire. Sasha stumbled, buffeted by the crowd, and he smiled in
relief as Laurie's arm went round him again. “Wow.”
“Incredible, isn't it?”
“Well, it's... hot.” Sasha pulled himself together. Laurie
expected more. “Yes. It's amazing—a different world.”
“I told you you'd love it. We both will.” Laurie hugged him
distractedly. “Libby, what’s going on over there?”
She
followed his gesture. “Oh, shit.”
An odd
movement had begun among the people on the kerb. Mostly they were
waiting, trying to hail cabs, but as Sasha watched, still dazzled
from his first look at a Californian sun, a mob of teenage kids
sprang out from their ranks. They began to run.
Libby
poked Bailey between the shoulders. “Car!” she commanded him, as if
he'd been a dog, and Bailey darted down the steps and into the
stream of yellow cabs and airport shuttle buses. He dodged a
speeding motorbike and frantically waved at a long silver Chevy
sedan which had been hovering by the drop-off bays. The car cut
shark-like through the chaos of incoming traffic. “You two,” Libby
shouted, rounding on Sasha and Laurie. “Fitzroy—assistant—with me,
now, and don't let any of them touch you.”
Laurie
pushed Sasha ahead of him. The Chevy had halted, its passenger-side
doors open. For a second Laurie thought there was no driver, then
laughed at his parochial Brit's mistake and dived for the back
seat, chivvying Sasha in first. Libby threw herself into the front,
and only then was Bailey allowed to stand down from his guard duty
and scramble on board, almost landing in Laurie's lap. “Oh, sorry,”
he said, without a trace of contrition, as the driver—uniformed,
expressionless and, of course, on the left—put the Chevy into gear
and pulled out.
Bailey took his time over untangling, but Laurie scarcely
noticed. He was staring out through the rear window. The road
behind them was alive with running, shrieking kids. Just for a
second Laurie thought he heard a chant of Devlin, Devlin being thrown after the
car. But Bailey played a character called Calvin, didn't he? That
was close enough, in a hot city wind. He chuckled. “That's some fan
club you've got going there, Bailey. They love you.”
Libby twisted round from the front seat. She'd perched a pair
of sunglasses on her sharp nose and was coldly unreadable. “Oh,
Christ, they're not for him.”
Bailey
looked miserable. Laurie frowned. “Well, I've only just got here,”
he said. Taking hold of Sasha's hand—making a gesture of it when
the movement attracted Libby's glower of disdain—he smiled
reassuringly into Sasha's anxious gaze. “Must be for you, then,
handsome.”
“They're for you, Fitzroy.”
“What? Don't be daft. They don't even know who I am
yet.”
“Haven't you been into a movie theatre since we hired you?
Douglas put together a trailer from your rehearsals. You're a star
before you've started. And don't go thinking it's neat, because
they'd tear you apart like wild dogs if they got the
chance.”
She
turned her back. Laurie kept a grip on Sasha's hand. “That's
insane,” he said faintly. Yet despite the madness of it, despite
her words, when he sank into the Chevy's deep, soft leather, a
weird delight blossomed up in his chest. A star before he'd
started—that would do. That would justify his decisions, everything
he'd left behind. He'd known he could make it work, and here he
was, bowling down Sepulveda Boulevard with Sasha beside him and
three hundred fans screaming his name.
“Devlin!” It seemed to come from right
beside his ear. He jolted at the thud of flesh on glass. The Chevy
had slowed down at the lights. To Laurie’s cold horror, a kid about
Clara's age had caught up with the car—was throwing herself at it,
her face a distorted blur, small fists pounding on the window
barely three feet from his face. “Devlin, let me in. I love you. I
love you!”
“Oh, fuck,” Libby said wearily. She nudged the driver. “Put
your foot down, Paul.”
Laurie
leaned across Sasha, who was also staring out of the window at the
kid. Laurie remembered the Barbican station, and a self-possessed
child who had talked to him about Shakespeare, about her own
ambitions and dreams. “No. Slow down. She's hurting
herself.”
“Serve the little bitch right. Paul, shake her off.”
The
sedan swerved. The girl lost her balance and crashed to her knees
on the tarmac. Laurie just had time to see her friends haul her
back off the road, and then she dropped out of his
sight.