The New Elvis Page 19

  Ron put down his fork and took a gulp of red wine. “We thought they were fireworks.”

  Dan pushed the enchiladas aside and poked a relleno with his knife. “Someone was shooting up the mall. People started running out the emergency exit, but we stayed put with the managers.”

  “A mom and pop team,” Ron interjected.

  “The gunman came in and took the four of us to the back, but then he had us guys go up front and form a barricade while he held on to the lady.”

  Ron wiped his mouth. “We did a phony job of securing the front, obviously. Then he had us all sit in the back room.”

  Marilyn put more salad on her plate. “I can’t believe you’re even here after that. Did this make the news? Was the gunman insane?”

  Dan swirled the wine in his glass and took another sip. “Definitely. And he had his rifle pointed at Joe.”

  “Joe owns the bookstore with his wife. He fought in Iraq,” Ron told them.

  “The gunman called 911 and wanted to talk to a specific detective,” Dan continued. “I guess he wanted to settle some score with him. Then he hung up and called his girlfriend and said good-bye.”

  Ron took over. “And then they turned off the electricity in the building, and when the gunman looked out to see what was going on, Joe jumped up, tackled him, and told us to grab the guns.”

  “Did you get photos?”

  Dan sat up straighter and nodded. “You’ve got to seize the moment.”

  Marilyn glanced at Logan, who was lost in thought at how brave they’d been.

  “Hey, anyone home?”

  Logan blinked twice, then looked at Marilyn. The last thing Dan had said struck him harder than a Roger Clemens fastball. He took out his iPad and typed a note.

  “Can you have tomorrow off?” she asked, after she read it.

  Everyone at the table laughed.

  “We gave him a great idea,” Ron said, “and he’s going to hit the streets Bronson style, dishing out some serious vigilante justice.”

  “No, really, what do you need to go do?” Dan asked Logan.

  “Leave him alone,” Marilyn admonished. “That’s his business.”

  Logan smiled, took his iPad back, and picked up his forkful of quesadilla.

  Chapter 66

  He had to do it today. He couldn’t wait any longer. Seize the moment.

  Online sources said that after It Factor wrapped, Ryan was going to be introduced as a new character on All Of My Days, playing the new kid in Suddenville, and as luck would have it, it taped in Los Angeles instead of New York.

  Logan left early, before Tom and Marilyn rose, and drove to KBC in Studio City. It was a Monday, and the lot outside Stage 4 was filled with fancy rides lined up behind a tall, wrought iron fence too high to climb. Logan waited at the curb and watched as some of the stars filtered out of the building and went to lunch in groups of two, four, and six around noon. As the gate opened to let them out, Logan entered the lot on foot and headed to an open door large enough to accommodate enormous backdrops and scenery.

  He stepped into another world, a brightly lit beach. White sand covered the floor of the sound stage, and towels, umbrellas, and a lifeguard tower added realism. The backdrop was a green screen. They would fill in the ocean later.

  Ryan sat by himself, opening a Styrofoam carton containing cold spaghetti and meatballs, a wedge of garlic bread, and a stub of corn on the cob. He wore a dark Speedo and classic Vans that were black with a wavy white stripe and white laces. As Logan approached, he bit into the corncob and squinted, trying to place him.

  Logan pulled out his iPad, and who he was clicked for him.

  “Hey!” he cried.

  A man wearing denim overalls rushed over. “Everything OK here?”

  Logan was six yards away.

  Ryan shooed the man away. “It’s cool. This is someone I know from a long time ago.”

  The man looked dubious but headed off.

  “Pull up a chair,” Ryan told Logan.

  Logan looked around. There was a group of folded canvas chairs by the wall. He set his iPad down on a closed trunk, unfolded a chair, brought it over, sat down beside Ryan, and then jumped up to retrieve his iPad.

  Ryan put his corn down and picked up his garlic bread. “You hungry?”

  Logan shook his head.

  “So, how you been?”

  Logan typed a note and passed it to him. Ryan read it and then studied Logan carefully. “You have something important to tell me?”

  He held onto the tablet, out of Logan’s reach. “You watch this show?” He waved at the beach set with his bread in a gesture of dismissal. “It’s crap. And the girl I’m supposed to be in love with is a brat. Don’t even like her. Don’t even know how I do it.”

  Logan’s eyes were on the iPad.

  “We’re done at five,” Ryan said finally. “If you have something to tell me, you’re can tell me then. You’re not going to write notes and pass ‘em to me like we’re in fourth grade. I know you can talk. I called your uncle a week after we met to see if he might reconsider telling me who my father is. I tried every ploy I could think of to get him to spill, but he wouldn’t. So then I asked him about you. He said you could talk if you wanted to, but something scared you so badly, you think you can’t. But you can, you know? You can do anything you want. And if you do write a note to me, I’m not gonna read it.” He squinted up at the clock on the wall. “I guess that gives you less than five hours to find your voice.”

  His speech completed, he handed Ryan back his iPad and left the set to finish his lunch in another room.

  Chapter 67

  On the way to Ryan’s Studio City apartment, Ryan stopped at a liquor store and came out with a large yellow box that he placed in Logan’s lap inside the agate grey metallic Porsche Boxster convertible he now drove. Logan studied the box as Ryan navigated the car through pretty streets and byways. An anchor and life preserver logo was placed next to the brand name, Cerveza Pacifico Clara, imported beer from Mazatlan, Mexico, and there were a dozen twelve-ounce bottles in the box. Ryan was now dressed in a white pullover, jeans, and the same sneakers he wore on set. Next to him, Logan felt pale and shabby in his skinny jeans and pilled green sweater. Was this a box of liquid courage that would help him find his voice?

  “I haven’t bought a house yet,” Ryan explained as they approached a sprawling, three-story apartment complex that stretched down the block. Once inside the security gates, they headed down a winding path through gardens and picnic areas with barbecues. Logan counted three swimming pools and four hot tubs by the time they made it to Building 11.

  They took the elevator to the third floor, got off, and walked to the last unit on the right. There, Ryan pulled out his keychain, which had a picture of Bea in Lucite attached to it. “My girl,” he said, holding it up so Logan could see her bright eyes, her blond curls, and her perfect, white teeth. “You remember her. In better days.”

  The key went into the lock, and Ryan let Logan enter the apartment first. No bachelor pad, this place. Ryan had appointed a decorator to bathe the place in black and blue, with red used as an accent color. The playpen-style seating in the living room was clustered around a square, double-glass-topped oak table. Beneath the glass, pictures of Ryan and Bea were grouped with pairs of movie ticket stubs.

  “Have a seat anywhere,” Ryan said, pointing toward the living room. He took the box from Logan and disappeared around a corner. Logan tried to figure out where to sit. Ultimately, he chose a spot opposite a wall that had a full color portrait of Ryan and Bea on it. The picture was taken in a backyard. They sat on the lawn, and a big black Newfoundland was wedged between them, its tongue lolling.

  Ryan came back and handed him an open bottle of beer. “Drink. And then we’re gonna work on your windpipe.”

  Even though Logan had never been to Ryan’s apartment, he felt at home and completely comfortable. He also felt calm. Calm that the news he had to share would come out in this safe place,
this warm home Ryan had created for himself.

  Ryan took his Vans off and put his feet up on the couch. Leaning back against a red pillow the shade of ripe cherries, he studied Logan. “Do you ever drink?”

  Logan shook his head.

  “Have you ever even tasted alcohol?”

  Again, Logan shook his head.

  “Man, I get the feeling you’ve missed out on a lot,” Ryan said. “So, what happened to you?”

  Logan closed his eyes and relived the fateful night.

  He watched as his father’s car entered the block and a mustard-colored sedan careened around the corner and rammed his father’s Chevelle into the curb. A grimy white car coming from the opposite direction roared past him and rammed the Chevelle’s front bumper. He watched as his father and the men leapt from their cars. He heard the gunshots and watched his father collapse like a dropped marionette behind his open car door. He heard himself scream and saw the killers’ heads turn. He heard one of them shout, “Get the kid!” He was running as fast as his legs would take him, through his gate, through the backyard to the spot where a gully had been dug beneath the fence. He pushed the Elvis album into the Henns’ yard first and then shimmied his way under the chain-link to safety. He hid behind the Henns’ large tree with the album clutched against his small, quaking body. The men were in his yard, stumbling and crashing through the clutter. He held his breath, afraid to make a sound. An explosion of sirens rose and wailed like the cries of fallen angels. The angry men hesitated. The one killer told the other that they had to go, but the other one argued against it and said, “We gotta get the kid! He saw us!” They continued to argue. The less aggressive of the two told his friend, “He doesn’t know what he saw,” but the first man was hard to convince. They continued to argue as they fled, and both their cars were gone when he finally gathered the courage to head back out to the street.

  He tried to reason with himself. The killers were gone now. He had never tried to identify them, and they must know that, because no one had found them. At some point over the years, they’d realized he either didn’t know what he saw or was too afraid to say anything. He had been afraid, but he had taken it too far. Not only would he not say anything to the police about the killers, he wouldn’t say anything, period.

  Ryan let his question to Logan go. “So, Bea died while I was on It Factor. Oh, my God, what a show. The judges kept comparing me to Elvis. Any song I sang, they told me that’s how Elvis would have sounded if he sang it. They wanted me to find my own voice. But I’ve never copied Elvis. I’ve been me all along.” He took a sip of beer.

  “Bea was found dead in her bedroom by her mom the week the show was down to the top four. I made it that far, likely as a result of all the people out there who still love Elvis, you know? And then we did home week, and I was still raw. I kept telling Bea to watch what she was taking, but her legs got funny. She couldn’t even feel ‘em. She was in bed all the time. She was depressed even when I was there with her. She didn’t want a wheelchair, but I was working on her to get one. Told her I wouldn’t mind pushing her around. I told her I’d already been pushing her around for years anyway.” He paused. “That’s a joke. She had me wrapped around her little finger.” He glanced up at the photo Logan was studying. “That’s us, in my old backyard. And that’s Nana. She’s gone, too. She was a good dog.” He finished his beer and set the empty bottle on the glass-topped table. “You want another beer?”

  Logan still had half a bottle but was feeling the beer’s effects. He hadn’t eaten, and Ryan seemed to sense it.

  “You want something to eat? I’ll get us something to eat.”

  Ryan left the room, and Logan looked outside. The sky was as blue as a dyed Easter egg, and someone on a balcony across the way was trying to fly a kite, thrusting it out and reeling it in, trying to get the wind to catch it.

  The plates Ryan carried to the table were filled with roast beef sandwiches cut into squares next to mounds of potato chips. He put a plate in front of Logan and then put one in front of himself before he took a swig of his second beer.

  “Bea and I, we tried for a long time to figure out who my dad is. My friend on It Factor, Seth, has a close friend who works in a DNA testing lab. I issued an invite on the show for anyone who donated sperm at your uncle’s fertility clinic about twenty or so years ago in Vegas to contact me, and we met two guys at a steakhouse—a serious lawyer type from Colorado and an Elvis impersonator who was a little long in the tooth and over-the-top gaudy. Neither of those guys were a match, but I think they were more disappointed than I was. Then Seth turned me on to this online psychic who gave me the impression that my dad might be an Elvis impersonator, but he talked about him in past tense, like he’s dead now.” Ryan bit into a square of sandwich, washed it down with beer, and abruptly changed topics. “Hey, you play Call of Duty? I’ve got it in the other room. You ever go online and play?”

  Logan shook his head and took another tiny sip of beer. He wondered if Ryan felt isolated. Again, Ryan seemed to sense his thoughts. “Yeah, it’s a little lonely here. Studio City is way different than Beverly Hills. Not better, not worse, just different. When you’re on a show, it’s hard to make friends. The actors hang out sometimes, but they’re an odd lot, all trying to climb over each other to get out of daytime and into prime time. And girls just want to hook up with you to say they did. It’s not a good scene.”

  Logan remembered he still had his uncle’s Mass card in his wallet. He pulled it out and showed it to Ryan, who took a moment to realize what it was. “Holy shit. Your uncle died about two months ago?”

  Logan nodded and closed his eyes. Ryan was telling him how sorry he was, but Logan was transported to another scene in his mind.

  Uncle Wendall was behind the wheel of his Cadillac, making the drive back to Vegas at what seemed to be a slug’s pace. Little Logan stared out the window at the arid desert scenery and wondered where all the buildings were. In the early evening light, he looked down at Elvis’ Christmas Album, the only thing he wanted to bring aside from some ragged clothes and shoes. He felt Uncle Wendall’s eyes on him, but when he snuck a look back, Uncle Wendall looked away and began to sing the song he’d taught him long ago. “This old man, he played one, he played knick-knack on my thumb, with a knick-knack paddy-whack, give a dog a bone, this old man came rolling home.”

  Logan squirmed, and Uncle Wendall intuited he needed to go to the bathroom.

  In as long as it takes for a song to play on the radio and another one to begin, they were at the rest stop. Relief washed over Logan. Uncle Wendall cared about his needs. He walked around to the passenger side of his big blueberry Cadillac, and Logan caught a whiff of his tropical cologne. Uncle Coconuts.

  “You going to stare at that album all night, or are you gonna come with me?”

  Logan looked up. Uncle Wendell had withered and grayed.

  He looked down at his own legs, but they were now clad in skinny jeans, and the Elvis album was on the dashboard.

  He looked back up at his fragile, aged uncle.

  “It’s time,” Uncle Wendall said.

  “For what?” Logan asked, knowing full well it had nothing to do with making use of the rest stop.

  Uncle Wendall stood at the open passenger door and waited for Logan to understand.

  “I know you said I could tell Ryan the truth, but he wants me to tell him.”

  The old man turned his rheumy gaze up to the heavens. The stars were beginning to glint like sequins on the fabric of darkening sky, and the air was still.

  “You are safe. I am watching over you now. You can speak. All you need to do is try.”

  Logan opened his eyes and looked across the coffee table at Ryan, who had been talking about loss. “Grief counseling,” he said. “It’s really helped me, listening to other people talk about about they’re going through. I attend a group that meets three times a week, and I’ve already processed some stuff. I’ve cried a whole lot, too, and wonder when I’m go
ing to stop. I think groups are better than one-on-one therapy because there’s a different dynamic. Everyone starts out as strangers, but you become friends pretty quick. I guess you have to, when you’re bawling your eyes out in front of them.”

  Logan took another sip of beer and Ryan broke into a lopsided grin. He sat up straight and leaned toward him. “Finish the bottle.”

  Logan obliged, and a burp erupted, surprising them both.

  Ryan jumped up. “Oh, my God! Your first word is burp!”

  Logan was so startled he felt dizzy and saw sparks dancing in his field of vision.

  Ryan ran over to where Logan was sitting and put his arm around him. “Maybe I can try some pre-performance stuff on you to get you to loosen up. Go ahead and try to cough. Take a deep breath and then push the air out of your lungs in a blast.”

  Logan honked, and they both started laughing. Then Logan gasped. His honk of a laugh sounded like rusty hinges on a Radio Flyer wagon being scraped across metal.

  Ryan was elated. “You need more to drink.” He ran out of the room and returned with another beer, which Logan drank in big gulps.

  He felt faint but excited and ready to try again.

  “Say A, E, I, O, U,” Ryan instructed, so close to Logan on the dark blue couch, he was nearly on top of him, ready to shake the vowels out of him.

  Logan croaked like a frog. “A, E, I, O, U.”

  They looked at each other, eyes wide.

  “OK,” Ryan said. “Now tell me what you wanted to tell me.”

  He sat back against the cushions, expectant, and waited.

  Logan cleared his throat and sounded like a person with bronchitis trying to dredge up phlegm. He took another sip of beer. His voice might be hoarse, and he might sound peculiar, but his real voice would come back with practice. The important thing was that Ryan heard him. He scooted back on the couch so he could face Ryan fully and took a deep breath.