Chapter 14 Cracking the Ice Crew #3
Macie stopped to pick up the Camel. The rain drummed on the building’s roof.
“I want to say, it took me years to understand any of this. If it was easy to see, no one would be destroyed by Chad. They’d just walk away.
But it’s not. He piles up his concern on you.
His worry. You get so you’re willing to do anything to make him feel better, and that’s when he starts telling you what to do.
By then, you’re relieved. He’s given you an instruction book.
You think if you follow it, everything will work again. ”
“But it never works again,” Sam said.
Macie danced the tip of the cigarette through the air. “The problem is that it works sometimes. Just often enough you keep trying. You keep hanging on until your whole life is anticipating the mercurial needs of Chad Bevington, and you don’t know who you are anymore.”
“And then he’s done,” Bex broke in.
Chin lifted, Macie mimed spitting out a sunflower seed shell.
“This is what he did to Juliette?” Bex asked.
“It’s what he did to everyone. I was first. I wasn’t a romantic interest—I don’t date men—but I guess I was auditioning to play the part in Chad’s life that ended up going to Sloan.
It took me a long, long time to rebuild my own brand of cool after Chad was done with me.
By then he’d joined forces with Sloan, after Marfa wrapped, and he was zeroed in on Juliette.
She’d become famous enough for him to pay her the attention she’d been wanting from day one. ”
“Not to be an armchair psychologist, but Chad’s starting to sound like a narcissist,” Bex said.
“Could be,” Macie said. “I’d never heard of a narcissist back then, and I wasn’t focused on what might be wrong with him.
I was focused on what he’d told me was wrong with me.
When I’d put myself back together enough to want to avoid him, I went with ‘I don’t need this fuckin’ drama,’ and then I peaced out and snuck into the lesbian bars. ”
“How did Sloan respond?” Sam asked.
Macie took another drag on their cigarette. The white smoke hung heavy in the air around the cluster of chairs.
“The two of them were about who owed what to who. No matter what, though, Chad made sure that whatever Sloan gave him, it wasn’t good enough.
Chad sometimes gave Sloan love and attention, and things that he wanted, but other times he wouldn’t even look at him, or he’d be cruel.
It meant Sloan was constantly trying to figure out what worked.
Like a slot machine. Keep feeding it money, keep pulling the lever.
You can’t stop because there was that one time you hit the jackpot, but the house always wins, right?
You know what was the biggest prize Chad held over Sloan’s head? ”
“Juliette,” Sam guessed.
Macie tapped ash into the plastic ashtray.
“Chad would joke that when he was done with her, Sloan could have her. Or later, he’d say, ‘You’ve only got her because I gave her to you.
’ But with the press, he’d play like his breakup with Juliette had been amicable.
He and Sloan and Juliette were all cool. ”
“None of that is okay.” Bex’s cheeks were pink, her anger at Chad’s bad behavior as palpable as heat shimmer coming off the highway.
Macie’s smile made their red-rimmed eyes look ghoulish.
“I hate to say this, but Juliette … I guess the way I’d put it is that she wasn’t a completely real person to anyone but Ramona.
She hadn’t had a chance to figure out who she was.
In the cult, they told her what to do. Then everyone here was making decisions for her.
Juliette wasn’t stupid. She knew Chad didn’t make her feel good, and Sloan made her feel like a prize he’d won at the county fair.
When she was high, I think she felt free, and she convinced herself that feeling was her.
What did any of us know? We were all acting, or reacting, on instinct, making money for everyone around us, counting love by the number of magazine articles about us or how many dollars we had in our bank accounts.
As a queer person closeted by my agent, I assumed I was here for a good time, not a long time.
The best I can say about those years is that I survived. Juliette didn’t.”
“What about Ramona? How did she survive?”
Macie didn’t answer right away, and Sam could tell the older actor wouldn’t be able to keep talking about this for much longer. They seemed to keep getting smaller as they spoke. They weren’t looking at Sam and Bex anymore, but into the club.
Sam wondered what Macie saw, staring into the empty space.
Was it the crush of bodies and ear-ringing volume pouring from the speakers, drinks spilling over fingers in cheap plastic cups, the singed hole from a cigarette they found on the sleeve of their blouse when they stood in line for the bathroom?
Had it been exciting? When did the drugs come out?
Or were there drugs before they even went to the club, another kind of ticket to the show?
They were famous, in a dark club with flashing lights, L.A.
crushing in around them, maybe crushing them.
How would they have known when it went too far, or how to pull back when it did?
Sitting in this empty relic of a club, Sam thought that Ramona’s tidy garden, books, and privacy made sense. Ramona just wanted to live, not crash through one sensation after another.
“She’s the best of us,” Macie said. “The best actor. The best person. You know she only had one scene in Marfa? No one remembers that. She stole the movie. Around then was when Tom started calling her his muse. Not Juliette, the lead. Ramona. He lined her up for three more films.”
“The muse thing is creepy,” Bex said. “Ramona was, what, twenty years old? Tom Kessler was already a successful writer and director in his thirties.” She tapped her lip.
“But I guess I get it. I rented every DVD I could get my hands on with Ramona in it when I was a kid, trying to figure out how to emulate what she had. It’s a quality that’s not just about what she looks like. She’s effortlessly talented.”
“Not effortless.” Macie’s green eyes looked almost black in the dim club.
“She worked hard. Kessler worked her harder than he should have. Juliette was going through her breakup with Chad, then her thing with Sloan. Ramona was preoccupied with the projects Kessler had her doing. She believes she should’ve paid better attention.
Tried harder. Maybe she could have found a way to convince the police of what really happened. ”
“What did really happen?” Sam asked, conscious that they’d put this question to Macie once already.
“I don’t know, I’m just repeating her words. Ramona implied there was more to it than an impulsive, fucked-up kid who didn’t know how to swim getting into a boat in the dark.”
Sam inhaled the caramel reek of Macie’s secondhand smoke. There was a headache forming right between her eyes. From the dust, from the smell, from this story. She pictured Ramona’s pretty four-seasons room. It smelled like the eucalyptus she had in big bunches in an enormous Chinese vase.
Then she remembered the movie poster. The canceled documentary. “You’ve stayed friends with Ramona. I know she and Christian had a falling out recently. Was Ramona close to anyone else?”
“She and Sloan saw each other on and off. I wouldn’t say they were close close, but close enough that he was one of her guesthouse tenants several years back.
Occasionally, he joins a dinner party at my place or Ramona’s.
I did reach out to him on Monday when I started trying to find her.
I left him a message. Just, like, ‘Get back to me when you have a chance, I have a question about Ramona.’ He hasn’t called, but he’s bad about keeping in touch. ”
“And Ramona doesn’t see Chad.”
“Never. Not since Juliette.”
“What about Kessler, the director?” Sam could tell, from Macie’s posture, they were feeling pushed, but the questions she wanted answers to were coming fast.
“As far as I know, they parted ways after the last project they did. Apartment 313.”
“Archie has been friends with Ramona ever since he was making the documentary?”
“That’s right. They clicked.”
“And he would hang out with her on sets?”
“Sometimes. Like I said, The Howling has been rough. Ramona loves the project, loves the story, but once the guest stars started coming on and the shoots got more physical for this second season, she’s been at the edge of her capabilities.
Ramona takes exquisite care of her body with weightlifting, hiking, green juice, all that—but you know, fifty is fifty.
If Archie’s hanging out with her on set, she needs him. ”
“We’d like to talk to him.”
“I can reach out and see if he might meet with you. I’m not sure he will. Archie’s circle is more of a line between him and maybe two people, other than his wife, who he can stand.”
“If you could give him your best pitch, that would be great.”
“Hold on, let me make the call.” Macie stood up and walked a few paces away with their phone.
Bex pushed her chair back, bringing her vapor device with her so it blew into her face. “What are you thinking behind those piercing baby blues, Samantha?”
Sam leaned back in the chair, making it creak. “In the time before Ramona disappeared, it sounds like she had positive relationships with everyone but Chad.”
“Chad and Christian.”
“Right. She falls out with Christian, who at this point hates everyone for no clear reason. She starts having problems on set. She brings her emotional support buddy to work. Juliette’s death anniversary is getting close.
And then Chad shows up at her work with Sloan, and Piper says Ramona hates it. Then she’s gone.”
“Before we even think about approaching Chad or Sloan, we’ve got to talk to Archie and find out why Ramona needed his support.
Especially if you’re right that Chad hired Ashleigh to tail you.
We need to tread carefully there. Was Ramona coming apart?
Was someone coming after her? Oh! Remember that Macie said they saw Ramona get a phone message that made her upset? ”
“Yeah. And as far as Sloan, I get that he’s Mr. Unavailable, but if he does care about these people, why hasn’t he answered Macie’s call?
He gave Ramona a ride on Friday! Is it as simple as he knows where Ramona is?
But then Sloan should be willing to reassure Macie that Ramona’s okay, so that’s fucking suspicious.
” Sam took in a short breath. “You know what? He drove her home, right? He’s been to her house.
They all have. They all know where she lives because she’s lived there for years.
She hasn’t lived anywhere else. They knew that house. They know that house.”
“Colin didn’t see anybody on the cameras, but Chad was on his motorcycle that night. Easier to dodge the cameras? Lay in wait somewhere he knows in the house? But why? For what?”
“I don’t know.” Sam rubbed her temples and forehead with the flat of her hand. “I just know this is ugly, and it keeps getting uglier.”
“I’ll never doubt Vic again. Figuring out the dynamics was the right way to go. She’s saved us precious time by helping us focus on talking to Archie.”
“And Sloan.”
“Right.” Bex stood up and held out her hand for Sam. “Let’s make sure Macie tells us how to find those two. Then let’s get the hell out of here. This club makes me feel like I’m walking on a grave.”
Sam looked around, and this time she didn’t imagine loud music or young people dancing.
She didn’t imagine anything.
This place should have been let go of a long time ago.