Scavenger Hunt Read Online Free PDF Page B

unconcerned. From the knees down his jeans were a darker blue where he had slipped in the koi pond, but he didn’t seem to care about that either. “So
have
you or haven’t you?”
    “Yeah,” said Jimmy, feeling like he had surrendered something, “I’ve been in love.”
    “Lucky us, huh?” Walsh brought the chair back down, picked up the sheaf of paper, and waved it in Jimmy’s face. Every page had corrections written on it. “It’s called
Fall Guy.
” He tossed it back onto the desk. “That’s all I told the studios when I shopped it around a few weeks ago. The title and my track record should have been enough. Selling the sizzle—that was all it should have taken to get an offer. Instead, all I got was thanks but no thanks, fuck you very much.”
    Jimmy could see Walsh’s gold nipple ring tremble with every raspy breath he took.
    Walsh whipped his thumb across the bottle. The cap flew off, and he batted it away with the other hand; it was one of those showy, jailhouse bits of business perfected by men with nothing but time. Jimmy had seen cons roll a cigarette with two fingers, seen them dance a quarter across their knuckles, move it back and forth across the bones. It didn’t impress him. Walsh took a swallow of no-name brandy. “I once paid a thousand dollars for a bottle of cognac—”
    “Did you kill the girl?”
    Walsh scratched at the red devil on his shoulder—it was an ugly tattoo, the pitchfork crooked, the horns on its head uneven. “I wish I knew.”
    Jimmy watched Walsh pop open a prescription bottle. He wanted to believe that Walsh was lying to him, stringing him along, but the man’s confusion and frustration were real.
    Walsh tossed a couple more Percocets down his throat and chased them with another belt of brandy. “Best news since getting sprung was finding all the new legal dope out there. Just tell the doctor you hurt your back mowing the crabgrass, they write you a scrip.”
    “Let me read the screenplay. Then you can pass out in peace.”
    “Tough guy—yeah, I can spot them a mile away.” Walsh waved the manuscript. “Well,
I’m
a certified fucking genius.
I’m
in the history books. What about you?”
    Jimmy glanced at his watch.
    “It’s a good half-hour drive to Napitano’s from here, so relax.” Walsh took another pull on the bottle. “That little prick has quite a place: three or four acres it looked like, swimming pools, fountains, tennis courts, statues everywhere.” He belched again. “I tried to crash Napitano’s party last month. Spent ten minutes arguing with one of the security guards. Punk had never even heard of
Firebug.
Two fucking Oscars—I might as well be Shelley Winters for all the good they’re doing me.”
    Jimmy laughed, and Walsh laughed too, shaking his head, and Jimmy almost liked him.
    “How many times did you see
Firebug
?” asked Walsh. “Come on, ’fess up.”
    “Four times.”
    Walsh grinned, and it wasn’t the phony leer he had turned on the twins. This one was honest, almost shy. “It
was
a good movie, wasn’t it?” He banged the bottle down. “All those film school brats flocking to Sundance—I used to feel intimidated. While they were getting hands on with Coppola and Redford, I was cleaning sinks and buffing floors. I worked graveyard as a janitor when I wrote
Firebug,
did you know that?”
    Jimmy nodded.
    “That’s how I met Harold Fong, the software geek who put up the money for Firebug. He was always pulling all-nighters at DataSurge, and I’d stop by on my breaks, and we’d shoot the shit about movies. It didn’t matter that he owned the company and I took out the trash, we
both
loved the Coen brothers. Him and me used to do bits from
The
Big Lebowski
and
Fargo
that went on for ten minutes. Harold fucked me on the profit participation for
Firebug,
but he backed me when no one else would. Now I can’t even get past his secretary’s secretary.” His eyes were red-rimmed. “You ever been in love?”
    “You