“My apologies,” Banning said, his speech slurred. Then he rolled over and passed out again.
Cousins wiped his hands on a towel from the guesthouse bathroom. His face was pale and the underarms of his shirt dark. “What a day!” he said.
The doctor arrived just after ten. The guards drove him up from the front gate. He examined Banning’s hand in the guesthouse and said he would much prefer to take the man to the hospital. The wound was serious enough, but he was more concerned about Banning’s state of mind.
Marquez stood out in the yard doing stretches. The dogs in the kennels were going crazy, barking and leaping in their chain-link runs.
Banning glanced up at me, groggy, as they helped him walk to the waiting ambulance. I gave him a little wave. He shook his head. He didn’t need to say it again: I am such a wreck.
The ambulance drove off into the darkness.
Cousins had dragged me into a world of nightmare and no sense. I had had my house turned upside down and spent three nights in jail. I had been drugged—I think—twice, and did not know whether I would ever again be the master of my own soul.
They wanted my help, but what could I do? What were they up against? How could they possibly win? It all was piling up on my shoulders, and I did not know what my final decision should be.
The Rottweilers were still leaping and barking. “It’s all the fuss and the people,” Marquez said. “They’ll get over it. They always do.” He walked over to the cage and tried to calm them, but all three dogs went into a spinning frenzy. Two of them, hefty bitches, chewed at the wire, spit flying through the links onto the concrete. Marquez backed off with a dismayed smirk and stuck his hands in his pajama pockets.
Cousins approached from behind. The dogs caught his scent. The male started rolling around in his separate cage, gnawing at his paws, eyes rolling. I tried to get one of the bitches to come to the wire, but she ignored me and barked madly at Cousins.
“Who feeds the dogs?” I asked.
“Why?” Marquez said with a defensive look.
Cousins suddenly got it. “Oh, my God,” he said. “Joe, who feeds them?”
“Sometimes Tammy or me, sometimes the bodyguards.”
“Where do the bodyguards come from?” I asked, kicking myself for not seeing it earlier.
“A security firm in Van Nuys. They rotate out every other day,” Marquez said.
Cousins took Marquez’s arm and they backed away from the cages. The dogs settled down a little but watched them with keen interest. “Let’s go into the house,” Cousins said.
Inside, Cousins told Marquez the bodyguards would have to leave the compound. We couldn’t trust them. Marquez paced around the living room, orating one long and monotonous apology, flinging his arms, swearing at his stupidity.
Watching him was the final straw.
I approached Cousins and said quietly, “This isn’t Oz, this is Kafkaville. Banning isn’t the only loon here.”
The guards made Marquez sign a special form that their firm would not be held responsible, then piled into a black Nissan SUV and rolled off down the road, through the main gate.
Tammy took Marquez off to bed.
I peered into the theater, waiting for Cousins. The circus was still frozen on the big screen. The room was quiet and peaceful. None of it, on the screen or off, seemed real.
Cousins came back and closed the theater door.
“Looks hopeless, doesn’t it?” he said.
“When did you guys meet?”
“Six months ago. Marquez had worked with Banning on an idea for a war movie, before Banning was tagged. When Tammy showed up last year, Marquez called Banning to get his opinion. Not long after that, Banning called me.”
“That is a remarkable string of coincidences,” I said.
“All roads lead to people who make movies,” Cousins said mildly. “Believe me, in Los Angeles, there are very few genuine coincidences. Before you go, let me show you what we’ve got on our side. What I’m working on. Might change your mind.”
“I really don’t think I want to see any more,” I muttered, a little ashamed. “I might compromise your operation.”
Cousins sighed. “Look at us,” he said. “We’re amateurs. If you can’t help us, it’s time to give up. And that means . . . well, you can guess. But I’ll understand if you want to just get the hell out. Give me ten more minutes of your time, then I’ll escort you down to the gate myself.”
I followed him around the east side of the house, down a flight of steps and through a side entrance, below the level of the lawn, into the basement.
Cousins flicked on a light switch. There was a bright white room down there, like something in a hospital, with expensive-looking equipment, microscopes, refrigerators, ovens. Equations and sketches of molecules covered a whiteboard on the wall. Off to one side stood a sunlamp, in the corner a small bath and shower stall, and beyond the benches, several stools and an easy chair.
“Is this where you made the stuff you fed me?”
“It is,” he said.
“And you?” I asked. “Are you susceptible?”
“Yes. But I’ve been experimenting with myself over the last few years, in the interests of living longer. Before I knew about Silk, I altered my own gut bacteria and some of my cellular characteristics. Unwittingly, I gave myself some immunity. Now it’s all I can do to stay just one step ahead of Silk.”
“They know where you are,” I said.
