Perfect Page 5

  Ted and Carl misinterpreted the reason for her tears and started talking at the same time, their voices filled with anxiety. “We, all of us, just wanted to make it official, Julie, that’s all, so your name could be Mathison like ours,” Carl said, and Ted added, “I mean, like, if you aren’t sure it’s a good idea, you don’t have to go along with it—” He stopped as Julie hurtled herself into his arms, nearly knocking him over.

  “I’m sure,” she squealed in delight. “I’m sure, I’m sure, I’m sure!”

  Nothing could dim her pleasure. That night, when her brothers invited her to go to the movies with a group of their friends to see their hero, Zack Benedict, she agreed instantly, even though she couldn’t see why her brothers thought he was so neat. Wrapped in joy, she sat in the third row at the Bijou Theater with her brothers on either side of her, their shoulders dwarfing hers, absently watching a movie featuring a tall, dark-haired guy who didn’t do much of anything except race motorcycles, get into fistfights, and look bored and kind of . . . cold.

  “What did you think of the movie? Isn’t Zack Benedict cool?” Ted asked her as they left the theater with a crowd of teenagers who were generally saying the same thing Ted had just said.

  Julie’s dedication to total honesty won by a very narrow margin over her desire to agree with her wonderful brothers about everything. “He’s . . . well . . . he seems sort of old,” she said, looking for support to the three teenage girls who’d gone to the movies with them.

  Ted looked thunderstruck. “Old! He’s only twenty-one, but he’s really lived! I mean, I read in a movie magazine that he’s been on his own since he was six years old, living out West, working on ranches to earn his keep. You know— breaking horses. Later he rode in rodeos. For a while, he belonged to a motorcycle gang . . . riding around the country. Zack Benedict,” Ted finished on a wistful note, “is a man’s man.”

  “Yes, but he looks . . . cold,” Julie argued. “Cold and sort of mean, too.”

  The girls laughed out loud at what had seemed a reasonable criticism to Julie. “Julie,” Laurie Paulson said, giggling, “Zachary Benedict is absolutely gorgeous and totally sexy. Everyone thinks so.”

  Julie, who knew that Carl had a secret crush on Laurie, instantly and loyally said, “Well, I don’t think so. I don’t like his eyes. They’re brown and mean-looking.”

  “His eyes aren’t brown, they’re golden. He has incredible sexy eyes, ask anybody!”

  “Julie isn’t a good judge of stuff like that,” Carl intervened, turning away from his secret love and walking beside Ted as they headed home. “She’s too young.”

  “I’m not too young to know,” Julie argued smugly as she tucked her small hands in the crooks of both their elbows, “that Zack Benedict isn’t nearly as handsome as you two!”

  At that piece of flattery, Carl flashed a superior grin over his shoulder at Laurie and amended, “Julie is very mature for her age, though.”

  Ted was still absorbed in the wonderous life of his movie hero. “Imagine being on your own as a kid, working on a ranch, riding horses, roping steers . . .”

  4

  1988

  “MOVE THOSE DAMNED STEERS OUT of here, the stench is enough to gag a corpse!” Seated on a black canvas chair with the word DIRECTOR stenciled in white above his name, Zachary Benedict snapped the order and glowered at the cattle moving around in a temporary pen near a sprawling, modernistic ranch house, then he continued making notes on his script. Located forty miles from Dallas, the luxurious residence with its tree-lined drive, lavish riding stable, and fields dotted with oil wells had been leased from a Texas billionaire for use in a movie called Destiny, a movie that, according to Variety, was likely to win Zack another Academy Award for Best Actor as well as one for Best Director—assuming he ever managed to complete the picture that everyone was calling jinxed.

  Until last night, Zack had thought things couldn’t possibly get worse: Originally budgeted at $45 million with four months allotted for filming it, Destiny was now one month behind schedule and $7 million over budget, owing to an extraordinary number of bizarre production problems and accidents that had plagued it almost from the day shooting began.

  Now, after months of delays and disasters, there were only two scenes remaining to be filmed, but the elated satisfaction Zack should have felt was completely obliterated by a raging fury that he could hardly contain as he tried ineffectually to concentrate on the changes he wanted to make in the next scene.

  Off to his right, near the main road, a camera was being moved into position to capture what promised to be a fiery sunset with the Dallas skyline outlined on the distant horizon. Through the open doors of the stable, Zack could see grips positioning bales of hay and best boys scrambling up in the beams and adjusting lights, while the cameraman called directions to them. Beyond the stable, well out of the camera’s range, two stuntmen were moving automobiles bearing Texas State Highway Patrol insignias into place for a chase scene that would be shot tomorrow. At the perimeter of the lawn beneath a stand of oak trees, trailers reserved for the main cast members were drawn into a large semicircle, their blinds closed, their air conditioners laboring in the battle against the relentless July heat. Beside them the caterer’s trucks were doing a land-office business dispensing cold drinks to sweating crew members and overheated actors.

  The cast and crew were all seasoned pros, accustomed to standing around and waiting for hours in order to be on hand for a few minutes of shooting. Ordinarily, the atmosphere was convivial, and on the day before a final wrap, it was usually downright buoyant. Normally, the same people who were standing in uneasy groups near the catering trucks would have been hanging around Zack, joking about the trials they’d endured together or talking enthusiastically about a wrap party tomorrow night to celebrate the end of shooting. After what had happened last night, however, no one was talking to him if they could avoid it, and no one was expecting a party.

  Today, all thirty-eight members of the Dallas cast and crew were giving him a conspicuously wide, watchful berth, and all of them were dreading the next few hours. As a result, instructions that were normally given in reasonable tones were being rapped out with taut impatience by anyone in a position to give them; directions that were normally carried out with alacrity were being followed with the clumsy inaccuracy that comes when people are nervously eager to finish something.

  Zack could almost feel the emotions emanating from everyone around him; the sympathy from those who liked him, the satisfied derision from those who either didn’t like him or were friends of his wife, the avid curiosity from those who had no feelings for either of them.

  Belatedly realizing that no one had heard his order to move the cattle, he looked around for the assistant director and saw him standing on the lawn, his hands on his hips and his head tipped back, watching one of the helicopters lift off for a routine run to the Dallas lab where each day’s film was taken for processing. Beneath the helicopter, a typhoon of dirt and dust swirled and spread out, sending a fresh blast of hot gritty wind laced with the odor of fresh cow manure straight at Zack. “Tommy!” he called in an irritated shout.

  Tommy Newton turned and trotted forward, brushing dust off his khaki shorts. Short of stature with thinning brown hair, hazel eyes, and wire-rimmed glasses, the thirty-five-year-old assistant director had a studious appearance that belied an irrepressible sense of humor and indefatigable energy. Today, however, not even Tommy could manage a lighthearted tone. Pulling his clip board from beneath his arm in case he needed to make notes, he said, “Did you call me?”

  Without bothering to look up, Zack said curtly, “Have someone move those steers downwind.”

  “Sure, Zack.” Touching the volume control on the transmitter at his waist, Tommy moved the mouthpiece of his headset into place and spoke to Doug Furlough, the key grip, who was supervising his crew while they set up a breakaway corral fence around the stable for tomorrow’s final shot. “Doug,” Tommy said into the mouthpi
ece.

  “Yeah, Tommy?”

  “Ask those ranch hands down by the pen to move the steers into the south pasture.”

  “I thought Zack wanted them in the next shot.”

  “He’s changed his mind.”

  “Okay, I’ll take care of it. Can we start striking the set in the house, or does he want it left alone?”

  Tommy hesitated, looked at Zack, and repeated the question.

  “Leave it alone,” Zack answered curtly. “Don’t touch it until after I’ve seen the dailies tomorrow. If there’s a problem with them, I don’t want to spend more than ten minutes setting up for another take.”

  After relaying the answer to Doug Furlough, Tommy started to turn away, then he hesitated. “Zack,” he said somberly, “you probably aren’t in the mood to hear this right now, but things are going to be pretty . . . hectic . . . tonight, and I may not have another chance to say it.”

  Forcing himself to appear interested, Zack looked up as Tommy continued haltingly. “You deserve another pair of Oscars for this picture. Several of the performances you’ve given in it—and forced out of Rachel and Tony—have raised goose bumps on the whole crew, and that’s no exaggeration.”

  The mere mention of his wife’s name, particularly in connection with Tony Austin, sent Zack’s temper to the boiling point, and he stood up abruptly, script in hand. “I appreciate the compliment,” he lied. “It won’t be dark enough to shoot the next scene for another hour. When everything’s ready in the stable, give the crew a dinner break, and I’ll check it out. In the meantime, I’m going to get something to drink and go someplace where I can concentrate.” Nodding toward the cluster of oak trees at the edge of the lawn, he added, “I’ll be over there if you need me.”

  He was heading for the catering trucks when the door of Rachel’s trailer opened and she walked out at the same moment Zack passed the steps. Their eyes clashed, conversations ground to a taut halt, heads swiveled, and expectation crackled in the air like heat lightening, but Zack merely moved around his wife and continued on, pausing at the catering truck to talk to Tommy Newton’s assistant and to exchange pleasantries with two of the stuntmen. It was an Academy Award performance on his part, requiring a supreme force of will, because he couldn’t see Rachel without remembering her as she’d been last night when he returned unexpectedly to their suite at the Crescent Hotel and found her with Tony Austin . . .

  Earlier in the day, he’d told her he intended to have a late meeting with the camera crew and assistant directors to go over some new ideas and that he planned to sleep in his trailer on the set afterward. When the crew gathered in his trailer for the meeting, however, Zack realized he’d left his notes at his Dallas hotel, and rather than sending someone for them, he decided to save time by inviting them all back to the Crescent with him. In an unusually lighthearted mood because the end was finally in sight, the six men had walked into the darkened suite, and Zack flipped on the lights.

  “Zack!” Rachel cried, rolling off the naked man she was straddling on the sofa and grabbing for her peignoir, her eyes wild with shock. Tony Austin, who was costarring with her and Zack in Destiny, jackknifed into a sitting position. “Now, Zack, stay calm—” he pleaded, leaping to his feet and scurrying behind the circular sofa as Zack started forward. “Don’t touch my face,” he warned in a rising shout just as Zack launched himself over the back of the sofa. “I’m in two more scenes and—” It took all five crew members to pull Zack off him.

  “Zack, don’t be insane!” the head gaffer cried, trying to restrain him. “He can’t finish the goddamned picture if you ruin his face!” Doug Furlough panted, holding Zack’s arms.

  Zack flung both the smaller men off, and with icy, deliberate calculation, he broke two of Tony’s ribs before they could restrain him again. Panting more from rage than exertion, Zack watched them all help the naked, limping Austin out of the suite, forming a circle around him. A half-dozen hotel guests were standing in the hall beyond the open doors, drawn, no doubt, by Rachel’s screams at Zack to stop. Stalking forward, Zack slammed the door in their faces.

  Rounding on Rachel, who’d wrapped a peach satin peignoir around herself, he started forward, trying to control the urge to do physical violence to her, too. “Get out of my sight!” he warned her as she backed away from him. “Get out or I won’t be responsible for what I do to you!”

  “Don’t you dare threaten me, you arrogant son of a bitch!” she shot back with so much contemptuous triumph that it checked him in midstride. “If you lay one finger on me, my divorce attorneys won’t just settle for one-half of everything you have, I’ll take it all! Do you understand me, Zack? I’m divorcing you. My attorneys are filing the papers in L.A. tomorrow. Tony and I are getting married!”

  The realization that his wife and her lover had been screwing each other behind his back while calmly plotting to live on the money Zack had worked so hard to acquire snapped his control. He grabbed her arms and shoved her hard toward the living room door. “I’ll kill you before I let you take half of anything! Now get out.”

  She stumbled to her knees, then stood up, her hand on the doorknob, her face a mask of jubilant loathing as she fired her parting shot: “If you’re thinking of keeping either Tony or me off the set tomorrow, don’t bother trying. You’re just the director. The studio has a fortune wrapped up in this film. They’ll force you to finish it, and they’ll sue your ass off if you do anything to delay it or sabotage it. Just think,” she finished with a malicious smile as she yanked open the door, “either way, you lose. If you don’t finish the picture, you’ll be ruined. If you do, I’m going to get half of what you make!” The door crashed into its frame behind her.

  She was right about finishing Destiny. Even in his infuriated state, Zack knew it. There were only two more scenes left to shoot, and Rachel and Tony were in one of them. Zack had no choice except to tolerate his adulterous wife and her lover while he directed their scene. He walked over to the bar and poured himself a stiff Scotch, tossed it down, and poured another. Carrying his glass, he walked over to the windows and stared out at the glittering Dallas skyline while the rage and pain he’d felt began to subside. He’d phone his attorneys in the morning and instruct them to proceed with divorce negotiations on his terms, not hers, he decided. Although he’d amassed a sizable fortune as an actor, he’d multiplied it many times over through astute investments, and those investments were carefully guarded by a series of complicated trusts and legalities that should protect most of his assets from Rachel. Zack’s hand relaxed its death grip on the glass he was holding. He was under control now; he would survive this and go on. He knew he could—and would. He knew it, because long ago, at the age of eighteen, he had faced a far more agonizing betrayal than Rachel’s, and he had discovered that he possessed the capacity to walk away from anyone who betrayed him and never, ever look back.

  Turning from the windows, he went into the bedroom, pulled Rachel’s suitcases out of the closet, and stuffed all her clothes into them, then he picked up the telephone beside the bed. “Send a bellman up to the Royal Suite,” he told the switchboard operator. When the bellman arrived a few minutes later, Zack thrust the cases with her clothing dangling out the sides at him. “Take these to Mr. Austin’s suite.”

  At that moment, if Rachel had returned and begged him to take her back, if she’d been able to prove to him that she’d been drugged out of her mind and hadn’t known what she was doing or saying, it would have been too late, even if he believed her.

  Because she was already dead to him.

  As dead to him as the grandmother he’d once loved and the sister and the brother. It had taken a concentrated effort to eradicate them from his heart and mind, but he’d done it.

  5

  PULLING HIS MIND FROM RECOLLECTIONS of last night, Zack sat down beneath a tree where he could see what was going on without being observed himself. Drawing his knee up, he rested his wrist against it and watched Rachel walking into Tony Austi
n’s trailer. This morning’s newscasts were filled with lurid details of the scene in the suite and the fight that followed it, details that were undoubtedly provided by the hotel guests who’d witnessed it. Now the press had descended on the area where they were shooting, and Zack’s security people had their hands full trying to keep them at the gate near the main road with promises of a statement later. Rachel and Tony had already given statements, but Zack had no intention of saying a single word to them. He was as icily indifferent to having the press at his “doorstep” as he was to the news he’d gotten this morning that Rachel’s attorneys had filed for divorce in Los Angeles. The only thing that was tearing at his control was the knowledge that he had to direct one remaining scene between Tony and Rachel before they could wrap tonight—a steamy, violently sensual scene—and he didn’t know how he was going to stomach that, particularly with the entire crew looking on.

  Once he got over that hurdle though, putting Rachel out of his life was going to be much easier than he’d thought last night, because, he admitted to himself, whatever he’d felt for her when they were married three years ago had vanished shortly afterward. Since then, they’d been nothing but a sexual and social convenience for each other. Without Rachel, his life was going to seem no emptier, no more meaningless or superficial than it had seemed for most of the past ten years.

  Frowning at that thought, Zack watched a tiny insect make its arduous way up a blade of grass near his hip, and he wondered why his own life frequently seemed so frustratingly aimless to him, without important purpose or deep gratification. He hadn’t always felt like this, though, Zack remembered . . .

  When he arrived in Los Angeles in Charlie Murdock’s truck, survival itself had been a challenge, and the job he’d gotten on the loading docks at Empire Studios with Charlie’s help had seemed like an enormous triumph. A month later, a director who was shooting a low-budget picture on the back lot about a gang of inner-city thugs that terrorized a suburban high school decided he needed a few more faces in a crowd scene, and he recruited Zack. The part required only that Zack lean against a brick wall, looking aloof and tough. The extra money he’d made that day had seemed like a boon. So had the director’s announcement several days later when he sent for him: “Zack, my boy, you have something we call presence. The camera loves you. On film, you come across like a moody, modern-day James Dean, only you’re taller and better-looking than he was. You stole that scene you were in just by standing there. If you can act, I’ll cast you in a Western we’re going to start shooting. Oh—and you’ll need to get a waiver from the union.”