TOMMY GRIPPED the pistol with both hands and squinted along the barrel, trying to keep it steady while he waited for the Indian to rear up again from behind the rock. It was a nickel-finished single-action Colt .45 with a seven-inch barrel and engraved ivory grips—the most beautiful thing he'd ever had in his hands. It was heavy and hard to hold steady. He'd already fired five rounds and missed every time.
"Spread your feet a little more," Ray Montane said. "And don't hold your breath, just take the air in real slow and deep. That's the way. You'll get him now, son. Aim for the chest where he's good and wide and don't forget, gentle on that trigger. Are you ready?"
Tommy nodded.
"Okay. So let's cock that hammer again."
Tommy clicked it back. From the edge of his vision he saw Ray once more take hold of the steel lever.
"One, two, three..."
Ray thrust the lever forward and there was a creaking sound as the cable tightened and then up came the Indian again behind the rock, pointing his rifle at them, as if about to shoot. Tommy took a last deep breath and squeezed the trigger. The jolt and the bang still made him jump and he was sure he'd missed again but there was a different sound this time, a loud clang. Ray and Diane whooped.
"There you go, pardner, you got him!"
Diane had been sitting in a wide-armed wooden chair up on the deck behind them. But she was on her feet now clapping and Tommy turned, still holding the gun, and grinned at her.
"Whoa there, cowboy," Ray said. "Careful where you're pointing."
"It's empty."
"I know. But you always have to check."
Ray took the gun from him and ejected the spent cartridges and placed it on the table alongside the tall cocktail glasses and the ashtray where Diane's cigarette lay discarded, smoke curling in the hot still air. Then the three of them set off along the strip of sunbaked sand to check out the Indian.
Tommy's spurs clinked as he walked, his eyes locked on his own shadow. The brim of his hat was perhaps a little too big but the general effect was still impressive. A real cowboy's shadow. He was wearing the outfit Ray had given him the morning after they'd arrived in LA. It was a perfect junior version of the one Red McGraw wore on Sliprock. Ray said he'd had it specially made at the studio and that it was much better than the ones they sold in the toy stores. The jacket and chaps were made out of genuine fringed buckskin and the leather gun belt had a silver buckle and silver-painted bullets all the way around that looked completely real. The gun that went with it wasn't real, of course, not like Ray's, the one he'd just been shooting, but it had the same ivory grips and six chambers with bullets that came apart so you could put caps in them. The bang was so loud it hurt your ears. Ray had also given him a Daisy BB gun that looked like a real Winchester rifle. It had a lever action and shot red pellets that Ray said could actually kill birds and little animals like chipmunks. Tommy had tried a few times but hadn't yet managed to hit anything.
"Hey, good shootin', son. Look, you got him plumb in the neck."
Ray unclipped the painted cardboard Indian from its metal frame and held it so they could all have a closer look. The face, above the bullet hole, was striped with war paint and had a wicked scowl.
"You just notched up your first Injun."
Ray held out his hand and Tommy, grinning and flushed with pride, shook it firmly.
"Now it's Mom's turn."
Diane laughed.
"Oh, no. I don't think so."
"Come on, sugar. You've got to learn sometime. What's old Gary Cooper going to think when he finds his leading lady can't handle a gun?"
"I play a teacher not a gunslinger and I don't think he'll give two hoots one way or the other."
Ray put his arm around her waist and pulled her close.
"What do you say, Tommy? Don't you think she should have a go?"
"Yeah! Come on, Diane!"
He hadn't yet called her Mum or Mom or anything other than what he'd always called her. And he couldn't imagine ever doing so. It was hard enough to get used to the idea that she wasn't his big sister anymore. It was like playing a game in which suddenly all the rules had been changed and everybody was having to guess what they were.
It wasn't scary or even upsetting, except, of course, that terrible evening when everything got turned upside down. He'd never forget the look on his mother's—or, rather, his grandmother's—face when Diane broke the news. Or how his father-grandfather had looked when they said goodbye at the departure gate at the airport. His face was pale and haggard and his eyes suddenly went all watery. As they walked away Tommy had looked back and waved and was shocked by how old and frail the man looked, how his bony body seemed to be crumpling inside his coat.
Tommy didn't know what he should call them either. Diane said he could call them Grandma and Grandpa or even Joan and Arthur. But neither of these seemed right. When they had spoken on the telephone a few days ago he'd managed not to call them anything at all, just told them about the flight from London and how hot and sunny it was here in LA and how he would soon be starting at his new school which he and Diane had been to see. It was called Carl Curtis and everybody seemed really nice and friendly, he told them, even the teachers. He couldn't hear them very well because the line was all crackly and they kept cutting each other off when they spoke, but even so he thought they'd both sounded sad.
Tommy worried that maybe he ought to be feeling sad too but he didn't. It was strange suddenly not to have a father. Sometimes, before he went to sleep at night, he would lie there thinking about David, the schoolboy who was his real father. He wondered where he lived and what he might be like. Maybe he had other children by now, children who would be Tommy's half brothers and sisters. This didn't exactly make him feel jealous; it was more like missing someone. But then how could you miss people you'd never even met? Or feel jealous of people who might not even exist?
No, what had happened was certainly pretty weird but there was no point in getting upset about it. As Diane kept saying, they were still the same people after all. Anyway, Ray was going to be his dad now and who could want a better one than that? And how could he possibly feel sad about not ever having to go back to Ashlawn and about moving to Hollywood and being here, right now, shooting Indians with real guns in Red McGraw's garden?
It was almost two weeks since Tommy and Diane had arrived. They had rented a little apartment just off Wilshire Boulevard but hadn't spent more than the occasional night there because they'd been living up here at Ray's. Tommy's bedroom was about ten times as big as his old one and every morning when he woke up he would lie there with his eyes closed and wonder if it would all still be there when he opened them. Then he'd get out of bed and tiptoe to the shuttered doors and step out onto his very own balcony, the decking hot beneath the soles of his bare feet. And the sky was always blue and the sun was warm on his skin and the strange new birds were singing in the trees. And he would walk to the balustrade and lean there looking down at the swimming pool and the palm trees and beyond to the city far below, with its vast grid of straight streets and palm trees, stretching away into the haze. Miguel, the gardener, would be mowing the grass or watering the flower beds or scooping leaves from the pool and he'd look up and see Tommy and wave and shout Good morning, Mister Tommy! How are you today?
The house was gorgeous. It had a roof of red tiles and the rough whitewashed walls were smothered in creepers with pink and purple flowers. In the middle of the red brick driveway there was a bronze statue of a rearing horse. The inside walls were made of swirling whitewashed adobe and hung with the stuffed heads of deer and elk and buffalo as well as lots of western paintings each with its own brass light. The downstairs floors were polished stone and scattered with cowhides and Indian rugs and in the living room there were chairs whose arms were made of real saddles with silver studs. The TV set was about three times the size of any he'd seen in England and the leather sofa he sat on to watch it was so enormous he felt like Alice in Wonderland after she'd drunk that magic shrinking potion.
Ray now tugged a fresh Indian from the stack that leaned against the wall of the shooting range and fixed it to the frame and when he'd done it the three of them walked back to the deck, Ray in the middle with his arms around both of them. He let Tommy reload the Colt with bullets from the cardboard box on the table and Tommy did it just as he'd been taught, clicking the cylinder back into position and checking the safety before offering the gun, grips first, to Diane.
"Okay, Annie's got her gun," Ray said. "Let's see her handle it."
He showed her how to hold it and raise it into position and then stood behind her, holding her shoulders, and told her all the things he'd told Tommy. She missed with her first shot but then hit the Indian five times in a row through his head and chest. Tommy felt jealous and proud in about equal measure. Ray lifted her off her feet and swung her around in a big circle and then he hugged her and kissed her for a long time on the lips. They did this sort of thing a lot, which Tommy found a bit embarrassing. He generally just looked away or pretended to be busy doing something.
When they'd finished, Ray said he was so hungry he could eat a horse so the three of them set off back up to the house. It was a steep and winding climb, forty-two steps and then a narrow gravel path through the palms and eucalyptus trees and some spiked bushes that Miguel said were called yuckers. Little greeny brown lizards scurried everywhere and Ray said you had to keep your eyes open because sometimes there were rattlesnakes too. Up on the lawn the sprinklers were on, making rainbows, and Ray dared him to run through them so he did and got half soaked but it didn't matter because it made everybody laugh and the sun was so warm he'd be dry again in minutes.
They walked up the final few steps from the lawn and around the swimming pool to the white marble terrace where Dolores, the housekeeper and cook, had lunch all laid out ready for them. There were plates of ham and turkey and cold roast beef and shrimps and lots of other things, including the best potato salad Tommy had ever tasted. The table was decorated with pink and white flowers and stood in the shade of a big old pine tree that had hundreds of fairy lights hidden in it which were turned on every evening when it got dark, along with the underwater lights in the swimming pool and the waterfall that trickled into it like a real mountain stream. It wasn't so much a house as a palace.
Tommy didn't know if this was how all the stars in Hollywood lived because he hadn't so far been to anybody else's house. But he had seen some stars. During the flight on the Britannia jet from London to New York (which, along with shooting a real Colt .45, was probably the most exciting thing he'd done in his entire life), the air hostess had taken him up to the cockpit where he met the captain and copilot who explained about all the dials and switches and even let him steer for a while. And on the way back to his seat, Tommy recognized Charlton Heston. He was sitting just two rows in front of them. It was funny seeing him in a sports coat instead of the leather skirt and toga he wore in Ben-Hur. He gave Tommy a big smile. Diane kept nagging at him to go and ask Mr. Heston for an autograph but he was too shy, even to let her do it for him, and had regretted it ever since.
Once they were over their jet lag, Ray had taken them for a drive around Hollywood in his car. It was a pale blue convertible Cadillac Eldorado with rocketship taillights and massive fins and white leather seats with enough room up front for all three of them. Tommy sat in the middle and wondered where the gear stick was until Ray explained the car was an automatic and changed gears all by itself. Ray switched on the radio and tuned it to a station that played all the latest hits and they drove east along Hollywood Boulevard with the Everly Brothers singing "Cathy's Clown" so loudly that everyone turned to stare at them.
They stopped at the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theater where film stars left their hand- and footprints in wet cement and then had a look at the new Walk of Fame where pink and gold stars were being set into the pavement—or sidewalk as Tommy had to get used to calling it—each with a famous name on it. Ray hadn't been given one yet but he said this was only because they were doing all the old-timers first.
While they were there a group of girls and boys came up and asked Ray for his autograph and he chatted with them and signed pictures of himself which he always carried with him just in case. One of the kids asked Diane if she was famous too and before she could answer Ray said she was soon going to be bigger than Marilyn Monroe, so they all asked her for her autograph too. Tommy felt really important.
They got back into the car and drove slowly past the Max Factor building which Ray said was Hollywood's first skyscraper and had only just been built. It had black glass windows which Tommy thought made it look a little scary. They drove past the famous gates of Paramount Studios where Diane was soon going to have her very own dressing room and then they headed back up onto Sunset Strip and stopped at a place called Schwab's drugstore, which Ray said was where lots of movie stars liked to hang out. There wasn't anybody famous hanging out there at that particular moment but Tommy had an ice cream float at the soda fountain counter so he didn't mind. Then, just as they were leaving, an open silver car shaped like a space rocket roared up and squealed to a halt and out jumped the driver over the side. He had short blond hair and was wearing sunglasses and a white T-shirt and blue jeans and he grinned and waved at them.
"Hey, Ray! How're you doing?"
"Okay. How about you?"
"Not bad."
They shook hands. The man nodded at Diane and Tommy and gave them a nice smile but Ray didn't seem to want to introduce them.
"Heard they let you do that picture down in Mexico after all," Ray said. "How'd it go?"
"Oh, you know. Got a little edgy now and then."
"When are they releasing it?"
"Pretty soon. I haven't seen it yet but Sturges seems happy, so..." He shrugged. "How're things going with you? More Sliprock?"
"Uh-huh. Couple of movies coming up too."
"No rest for the wicked."
"Guess so."
There was an awkward pause. The man looked at Diane again and smiled.
"Hi."
"Hello."
"Well, we gotta be going," Ray said.
"Me too. Just getting some smokes. See you around."
"You bet."
The man tilted his head to peer over his sunglasses at Tommy. His eyes were even bluer than Ray's. He grinned and winked then went off into the store.
"Asshole," Ray muttered.
As they walked to the Cadillac, Diane asked who the man was and Ray said his name was Steve McQueen. He was in a TV show called Wanted: Dead or Alive which Tommy had heard about but never seen. Ray said it was a crock of shit and Diane told him off for using those words in front of Tommy. Ray said sorry but it was true because the guy couldn't act his way out of a wet paper bag. The movie he'd just done was sure to be another crock of shit.
"It's just a remake of some two-bit Japanese picture," he said. "They offered it to me, but I turned it down."
Tommy asked what it was called and Ray said the script was so bad he'd forgotten. All he could remember was that it was about seven gunslingers rescuing a Mexican village from some corny bunch of bandits.
Tommy had already noticed that Ray didn't seem to like many other westerns or the actors who were in them—apart from a few, like John Wayne and James Stewart and, of course, Gary Cooper. Tommy had asked him early on whether he'd ever met Robert Horton, the actor who played Flint McCullough, and Ray said he hadn't but that, for a wagon train scout, Flint always seemed kind of faggoty, which Tommy didn't understand except that it probably wasn't a compliment.
They'd already seen the famous Hollywood sign from a distance, but on the way back to the house, Ray took them up a winding canyon where they parked and walked along a trail to get a better look. The letters were enormous. Ray said they were fifty feet tall and that the sign used to say HOLLYWOODLAND until someone decided to take away the last four letters. Somehow, up close, there was something sad about it. The paint was peeling from the letters and the props behind them were all overgrown and rusty. Ray said that a few years ago a young British actress called Peg Entwistle, who nobody wanted in their movies anymore, had climbed to the top of the letter H and jumped off and killed herself.
"Well, Ray, thanks a lot for sharing that with us," Diane said.
Ray laughed and put his arm around her.
"Sugar, I told you. The whole world's gonna want you."
Lunch on the terrace was almost over now. Tommy had finished all the potato salad and was on his second helping of chocolate ice cream. Ray and Diane were sitting on the other side of the table smoking their cigarettes and smiling at him.
"Didn't they ever feed you back in England?" Ray said.
"Not like this."
As usual, after lunch, Diane and Ray disappeared off to Ray's bedroom for what they called a siesta and even though he wasn't tired, Tommy was expected to go to his room and have one as well. It was too hot outside to do anything else, so he didn't mind. He lay on his bed and tried to read some more of his book. It was called White Fang and it was good but for some reason he couldn't get into it. It had been like that ever since they arrived. His head was always fizzing with too many new things.
The past two weeks had been wonderful, just hanging out with Ray and Diane, having fun. But everything was about to change. Tomorrow was going to be Tommy's first day at Carl Curtis and even though the school had seemed perfectly friendly when he and Diane visited it, he couldn't help feeling nervous. He knew it was silly. He hadn't wet the bed in a long time and, in any case, he wasn't going to be boarding. But he was still afraid that somehow somebody would find out and start calling him Bedwetter again.
That night Diane and Ray were going out to a party being thrown by Herb Kanter, the producer of Remorseless. Tommy asked if he could go too but Diane said it wouldn't be starting until after his bedtime and was only for grown-ups. Dolores would be at home to look after him, she said. Tommy liked Dolores. She was little and very pretty and had big dark brown eyes. To begin with, Tommy had assumed she was married to Miguel, but she wasn't. She had a tiny room along the corridor that went between the garage and the kitchen with a lovely picture of Mary and the baby Jesus on her wall, along with photos of her own little son who, oddly, was called Jesus too. Dolores said he lived with his grandparents in Mexico City. Tommy told her that's what he used to do too, only in England.
When it was time for Ray and Diane to leave, he was already in his pajamas and bathrobe, eating his supper from a tray and watching I Love Lucy on the huge TV in the living room. He'd seen the show in England and had never found it as funny as the people in the audience obviously did. They screamed with laughter at everything anyone said.
There was a noise in the hallway and through the big double doors he saw Diane and Ray coming down the wide, curving staircase. They looked wonderful. Ray was wearing a black suit with a long jacket and a tie like Bret Maverick's except that it had a silver steer's skull at the knot. His hair was all slicked back. He gave Tommy a little wave and waited in the hallway while Diane came into the living room to say goodbye. She was wearing a strapless silver dress that shimmered as she moved. Her hair was pinned up and her lips were painted bright red. She put her hands on Tommy's shoulders and bent to kiss him.
"Goodnight, sweetheart. Be a good boy."
"Will there be lots of film stars there?"
"I imagine so."
"But you'll be the most beautiful."
Diane laughed and kissed him again.
"You're so sweet. Oh dear, I've put lipstick on you."
"I don't mind. Have a nice time."
"Goodnight, darling. Love you to bits."
"Love you to bits too."
After the front door had clunked shut, Tommy went to the window. A long black sedan stood waiting for them beside the statue of the rearing horse, a uniformed chauffeur holding the back door open. Diane glanced back at the house as if she knew Tommy was watching and she blew him a kiss and then climbed in. The chauffeur shut the door and got into the front and the car pulled slowly away. Its windows were darkened so he couldn't see them anymore but in case they were still looking he waved again and stood watching until the car had disappeared.