The Lost Expert, page 9
“Nice view,” Krunk said.
Chris nodded. “I guess this is how the other half lives.”
“More like the other half a percent,” Krunk snapped.
Chris wrapped his fingers around the cold metal of the railing. He leaned out toward the point where the city met the lake and seemed to plunge into vast emptiness. “Take deep breaths,” he heard Laurie say. Laurie had started going to yoga on Sunday afternoons. She was trying to get Chris to go with her. She would come home and say, “You’re breathing all wrong. Here, like this. From the centre.”
“So …” Chris said. He was waiting for his friend to take over, to explain to him what he’d been doing and what he should do next.
“Fuck.” Krunk pronounced. “Fuuuuuuuuuuuck.”
“Yeah,” Chris said.
The Nokia vibrated quietly in one of his pockets.
“That’ll be Laurie,” he said.
“You better answer it.”
“I’ll call her back.”
“Dude, answer it! She’s seriously freaking out. She’s called me like ten times. I was like — he’s your boyfriend. How the eff should I know where he is?”
Chris pulled out the phone. It stopped ringing.
“Answer your phone. She was really worried about you. Couldn’t you have called her or something?”
Chris didn’t reply. He tracked a plane descending. Krunk, the king of inconsideration, was trying to make him feel guilty? He was the one who was always teasing him about his short leash and even shorter cock.
His phone, vibrating again. Same caller.
“Just answer it,” Krunk barked. He stomped inside.
“Laurie?”
“Chris, oh my god! Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m fine.”
“I’ve been calling for days.”
“I know. I know. I’m really sorry.”
“Where are you? I thought you were …” Laurie stops, a sob caught in her throat. “I called your mom, the restaurant. I was just about to call the police.”
“No, no, I’m okay,” Chris said.
“Where are you?”
“I got a new job,” he said brightly.
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Out of the blue, I got this job. On a movie set.”
“On a movie set?”
“Yeah, it’s really cool.”
“When did this happen?”
“Uh, Friday. After work. I was just walking home when all of a sudden I ran into this guy I knew. And he asked if I had a few hours to help out because they were super short-staffed, some kind of flu bug. So I said okay. And I ended up working, like, really, really late.”
“But you never came home! I was up all night worried!”
“I know, I know. I’m so, so sorry. I just — I was working so hard I lost track of time.”
Chris gulped for air. Krunk said all movies were fiction and all fictions were lies and that the best lies adhered so closely to the truth, they made a whole new reality. Whatever that meant.
“You couldn’t have called me once? This whole time?”
Laurie was seriously pissed. This was not progress.
“I know, I know. I’m sorry. I screwed up. I was just working and working and working. It was really crazy. They hired me! I worked all day. And I’m working tonight.”
“They hired you?”
“Yeah. And they pay really well! Like, unions and stuff.”
“That’s great! But, Chris, honestly, you’re like a giant seven-year-old. You can’t just disappear. You need to call, no matter how busy you are.”
Chris felt relief blossom in his chest. She believed him. She was forgiving him. He also felt a twinge of annoyance. Krunk and her, lecturing him like he didn’t have a clue. What if they hadn’t hired him? Anyway, why had he said that? Now she was going to start asking about his new job.
“I know, I know, I’m sorry.”
“I’m just glad you’re okay. And you got a new job! That sounds like so much fun. Is Krunk working there, too?”
“No, no,” Chris said jovially. “It’s just me.”
“Great!” Laurie said.
“Well, anyway, I have to get back to work.”
“You do?” Laurie sounded both enthusiastic and disappointed.
“Yeah. I’m working all night.”
“All night?”
“But I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon. We’ll have a nice dinner.”
“Oh, well. Okay. I’ll see you then, I guess. Just don’t disappear. And answer your phone!”
Chris flipped the Nokia closed.
Through the glass doors, he watched Krunk inspecting the shimmering bar of high-end liquors. He was shaking his head. Chris couldn’t tell if it was in response to the conversation he had just overheard or the abundance of untouched top-shelf booze the hotel provided. At any rate, he’d lied through his teeth. Laurie had barely put up a fight. She was so eager for him to do something with his life that she could just forgive his complete disappearance for two whole days. Or had it been three? Chris knew he should be relieved. Mad at himself, if anybody. Instead, he felt an anger welling inside him: a bitter oozing, compelling and familiar. The look on the face of the paparazzo who’d caught him making out with that woman. Daphne. He hated Thomson Holmes. He hated him more than anyone else in the entire world. And Daphne, draping herself over him like a fur. Her tongue wriggling in his mouth …
What was wrong with him? What was he doing?
“What are we waiting for?” Chris said loudly as he came back inside. “Let’s have a drink!”
“Are you crazy?” Krunk’s reedy voice was higher than usual, almost cracking. “When we walk out of here, they’re going to be scouring the place. It’ll be CSI meets CSIS when they find out about this. They’ll be like, who was that guy? Fingerprints, hair samples, DNA, everything, man. Everything.”
Chris put his hands in the pockets of his acid-washed jeans. Just as quickly, he pulled his hands back out and ran his fingers through his hair.
“You don’t seem to realize how messed up this is,” Krunk said.
“Yeah, well,” Chris said nonchalantly, “I already touched stuff.” Seeing Krunk’s scowl, he quickly went on. “You can take your glass with you. If you really think —”
He poured two glasses from a gold bottle labeled Hakushu 18 and handed one to Krunk, who took it reluctantly and didn’t drink. Chris took a swig. The booze felt good on his scuffed throat.
“You don’t even look like him,” Krunk complained, watching angrily.
“C’mon, man,” Chris said vaguely.
“Thomson goddamn Holmes.”
“You want room service? We could get room service.”
Krunk put his glass down hard.
“Don’t you get it, man? This isn’t a joke! For one thing, you are impersonating a guy worth millions. Hundreds of millions.”
“Yeah.” Chris scrunched up his face. “But it’s not like I — I mean, I didn’t touch his money. And, anyway, I didn’t mean to.”
“You didn’t mean to?”
“It was an accident.”
“Listen to yourself. You think you can just tell them, ‘Well, you know, I didn’t mean to impersonate one of the world’s most famous and richest men. It was an accident.’ You think anyone is going to believe you didn’t stage the whole thing? Disappear Thomson Holmes, star in his movie, sleep in his suite!”
Chris drained his glass.
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” he snapped.
Krunk looked at him disbelievingly.
“But you’re wearing his clothes! You’re sleeping here, for fuck’s sake!”
Chris didn’t answer.
“So where is he? Where is he, then?”
Chris shrugged.
“You don’t know? He could walk through the door right now!”
“He hasn’t, though,” Chris said weakly.
“Any second!”
“Bryant Reed said I was giving the best performance of my life.”
“Of your life?” Krunk stepped close to Chris and leaned in, spitting a little as he declaimed, “You are not Thomson Holmes! This is not your life. Thomson Holmes is a world-famous celebrity asshole. And he’s missing. What if he’s dead? What if he’s kidnapped? Who do you think’s going to get the blame? Or what if he’s alive, what if he’s fine and downstairs in the lobby right now asking for the key to his fucking penthouse suite? Then what?”
As if on cue, a phone rang. Both of them startled. It was the other phone. The new phone. Chris looked at the display. It was Alison. Krunk stared at the gleaming gadget, his eyes bulging.
“They gave it to me. It’s Alison. My assistant.”
Krunk shook his head. He picked up his glass of scotch and drank. He carefully wiped the surfaces of the glass with the sleeve of his hoodie. The phone stopped ringing.
Chris didn’t know what to say. He’d never seen his friend so rattled before. “I know how crazy this looks. But I —” His anger was gone. He just wanted Krunk to realize, to understand, that what had happened wasn’t — he wasn’t impersonating anyone. Or if he was, it wasn’t the person Krunk thought it was. “The movie. There’s no script. Before each scene, Reed comes around and tells me what’s going to happen. And then I just improvise.”
“You improvise?”
“Yeah, like, the dialogue and stuff. I don’t know how to explain it. It just takes over.”
“It just takes over,” mimicked Krunk, adding a high pitch to his tonal nasality. Something flashed in his eyes. Chris stepped back, surprised. The photographer. Krunk. Both of them. Jealous, Chris thought, though he knew that wasn’t it. At least not exactly.
“We gotta get out of here,” Krunk said. “Right now. How do we get out of here? Maybe there’s a stairway, there must be, like, a fire exit? Do you know what they’d do to us if we got caught in here?”
Krunk snatched the empty glass out of Chris’s hand and started wiping the sides clean with his hoodie sleeve. “Get your stuff or whatever,” he said. He put the glass down and headed to the door of the suite.
Then he looked back at Chris, who shrugged again and said, almost sadly, “I don’t have any stuff.”
“Then let’s go!” Krunk pulled the sleeve of his hoodie down over his hand and turned the knob of the door to the hallway. The Samsung ran again, loud in the sepulchral silence. “Turn that thing off, will you?” He led them past the elevator toward the dim glow of an end-of-corridor door barely lit by an emergency exit sign. Impatiently, Krunk pushed at the door, which groaned then reluctantly opened to reveal a bare concrete stairway. “C’mon,” he said, looking back at Chris. “Hurry up.”
“Dude,” Chris said, “we’re on the thirtieth floor. Let’s take the elevator.”
“Not safe,” Krunk barked. “Cameras in the elevators. Cameras everywhere,” Krunk muttered, jamming the cheap sunglasses back on his face and pulling his hoodie over his buzz cut. He moved into the stairway and began descending, one heavy booted footfall at a time.
“Okay,” Chris said faintly. “Geez. Wait up.”
“When we get out of here, we’re gonna get rid of our clothes,” Krunk said between heavy breaths. He was dripping sweat. Chris thought he looked ridiculous, in his sunglasses and hoodie, like one of those super fat guys at the beach who tries to cover up his grossness in a massive Hawaiian shirt and rustic straw hat. “Everything goes in the garbage bag. Mine too. They could match fibres.”
Chris grunted. Twenty-plus floors still to go. His shins were starting to hurt. Fibres. Fuck you, fat-man-on-the-beach. Fuck you and your fibres. He picked up the pace, his Italian loafers slapping the metal stairs in flat counterpoint to the thump of Krunk’s heavy boots.
After another ten floors, Krunk stopped. “I need a break.” Breathing heavily, he pulled a smashed pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of his hoodie, but didn’t tap one out. “Jesus,” he gasped.
Thomson Holmes’s phone rang again.
Chris pulled the phone out of his pocket. It was Alison for the fourth time.
Krunk looked at the phone like it was diseased. “Take the battery out of it. They’ve got GPS, they can track you with that.”
“Nobody’s tracking me,” Chris said.
“How do you know?”
The phone stopped ringing, then rang again.
“Give it to me.” Krunk yanked it out of Chris’s hands. While Chris watched, he carefully wiped down its shiny surfaces with the sleeve of his hoodie. What about fibres? Chris wanted to blurt. Cradling it in his sleeve, Krunk bent down and gingerly slid the phone onto the landing.
Anger surged through Chris again.
“We’re just going to leave it here?”
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
They scurried downwards, the abandoned phone bleating into empty space. Chris pictured Alison dialling, dialling, leaving messages in her soft, persistent voice, the phone, illumined by her presence, buzzing soulfully, pining for him.
Eventually, they reached bottom. They stood, panting and sweaty, in front of a thick metal fire door. Its high glass window was grey. Soft light filtered through. “This had better not be locked,” Krunk said grimly. He pulled down the sleeve of his hoodie, then grasped the handle of the heavy door and pushed through. They stumbled into the gloom of an empty, unadorned back passageway. “Get outta here,” Krunk was muttering. “Take the subway. Faster. More anonymous.” He led them along the corridor, then through a door. The door turned them out into a carpeted hallway near the main-floor elevator area just off to the side of the check-in. Krunk, moving quickly now, shoved his sunglasses back up the bridge of his nose, tugged his hoodie into place, and plunged into the main lobby. Chris followed but was almost immediately intercepted by the hotel concierge on duty, who cut him off from Krunk, his arms waving like the wings of a disturbed peafowl.
“Sir, sir! Sorry to disturb you! There is an urgent message from —”
“Thomson!” Alison called, jumping up from a chair and rushing over. “There you are. Where have you been? Why aren’t you answering your cell?” Alison’s soft brown hair glimmered in the soft lobby lights as she shook her head indignantly. Chris felt suddenly relieved. Here was Alison. Looking for him. “You’re late! They’re waiting for us on set!” Realizing that people in the lobby were listening, Alison lowered her voice. “We’ll discuss it on the way.” She took Chris’s arm, felt the shirt, hot and wet. With a quick glance, she saw that Chris was drenched in sweat. “What have you been doing this time?” Not waiting for an answer, Alison started to pull him through the lobby. Chris resisted for a moment, then let himself be led. They moved past Krunk, some guy in a weird get-up Alison didn’t even notice.
A car idled out front. The driver closed the door after them. Chris caught a last quick glimpse of his friend, slouched low, hoodie pulled down past his forehead. Chris raised a hand, pushed his palm against the cold window. Krunk scowled and shook his head. The limo lurched into traffic.
Script 5
INT. STREETCAR – MID-MORNING
THE LOST EXPERT, pale and weary, rides the streetcar, which is full but not crowded, the bulk of the crush having already exited near the centre of the city. Outside, the intersection is a sea of women clutching parcels to their chests, hawkers and newspaper boys, panhandlers and heckling drunks diving to avoid sharply dressed men in Model Ts. The seat next to the Lost Expert is taken up by a MAN IN A PINSTRIPED SUIT. He holds the Daily News tabloid up in front of his face. We see headlines: “Lindbergh Prepares for Next Adventure”; “Germany Protests Restrictions”; “Allan Proposes Cut to Immigration”. The Lost Expert looks out the window. There are campaign posters plastered to every utility poll: Join Allan’s Army, We Are Stronger Than We Know. The streetcar clears the crowded intersection and lurches ahead. The man lowers the paper.
JOEL MCCANN
What a display! We gotta get this city cleaned up!
THE LOST EXPERT
(wary)
It could certainly benefit from some improvements.
JOEL MCCANN
(pointing at a passing Allan’s Army sign)
He’s the man to do it, I’d say.
THE LOST EXPERT
I try to stay out of politics.
JOEL MCCANN
You’re a smarter man than me! Hey, you look familiar. Have we met?
The Lost Expert considers the man, who has pale, watery blue eyes and a soft, forgettable, not quite pudgy face.
THE LOST EXPERT
I don’t think so.
JOEL MCCANN
Say, didn’t I see you in the paper? Aren’t you that guy, the guy who found that kid?
THE LOST EXPERT
Yes, that’s me.
JOEL MCCANN
Well, I’ll be. And you really found that Jew boy?
THE LOST EXPERT
I just try to help.
JOEL MCCANN
Modest too!
The streetcar slows.
CONDUCTOR
Beltfield. Beltfield next.
JOEL MCCANN
Is this your stop?
LOST EXPERT
No, I’m on until Westdale.
JOEL MCCANN
(jovially)
Back to the Jews, huh?
The Lost Expert looks out the window.
JOEL MCCANN (CONT’D)
Hey no offence! No offence, bud! Here, let me properly introduce myself.
Joel McCann extracts a business card from a silver case and passes it over to the Lost Expert. Joel McCann, Senior Advisor, Allan for President.
THE LOST EXPERT
(glancing at the card then immediately passing it back)
Like I said, I’m not interested in politics.
