The Great and Secret Show

IV

Only Abernethy ever called Grillo by his first name. To Saralyn, from the day they’d met to the night they’d parted, he was always Grillo; to every one of his colleagues and friends, the same. To his enemies (and what journalist, particularly a disgraced one, did not court enemies?) he was sometimes That Fuckhead Grillo, or Grillo the Righteous, but always Grillo.

Only Abernethy ever dared: ‘Nathan?’

‘What do you want?’

Grillo had just stepped out of a shower, but the very sound of Abernethy’s voice and he was ready to scrub himself down again.

‘What are you doing at home?’

‘I’m working,’ Grillo lied. It had been a late night. ‘The pollution piece, remember?’

‘Forget it. Something’s come up and I want you there. Buddy Vance – the comedian? – he went missing.’

‘When?’

‘This morning.’

‘Where?’

‘Palomo Grove. You know it?’

‘It’s a name on a freeway sign.’

‘They’re trying to dig him out. It’s noon now. How long before you can get there?’

‘An hour. Maybe ninety minutes. What’s the big interest?’

‘You’re too young to remember the Buddy Vance Show.’

‘I caught the re-runs.’

‘Let me tell you something, Nathan my boy –’ Of all Abernethy’s modes Grillo hated the avuncular most. ‘– there was a time the Buddy Vance Show emptied the bars. He was a great man and a great American.’

‘So you want a sob piece?’

‘Shit, no. I want the news on his wives, the alcohol, and how come he ended up in Ventura County when he used to swan around Burbank in a limo three fucking blocks long.’

‘The dirt, in other words.’

‘There were drugs involved, Nathan,’ Abernethy said. Grillo could picture the look of mock-sincerity on the man’s face. ‘And our readers need to know.’

‘They want the dirt, and so do you,’ Grillo said.

‘So sue me,’ Abernethy said. ‘Just get your ass out there.’

‘So we don’t even know where he is? Suppose he just took off somewhere?’

‘Oh they know where he is,’ Abernethy said. ‘They’re trying to bring the body up in the next few hours.’

‘Bring it up? You mean he drowned?’

‘I mean he fell down a hole.’

Comedians, Grillo thought. Anything for a laugh.

Except that it wasn’t funny. When he’d first joined Abernethy’s happy band, after the debacle in Boston, it had been a vacation from the heavy-duty investigative journalism in which he’d made his name, and at which, finally, he’d been out-manoeuvred. The notion of working for a small-circulation scandal sheet like the County Reporter had seemed light relief. Abernethy was a hypocritical buffoon, a born-again Christian to whom forgiveness was a four-letter word. The stories he told Grillo to cover were easy in the gathering and easier still in the telling, given that the Reporter’s readers liked their news to perform one function only: the ameliorating of envy. They wanted tales of pain amongst the high rollers; the flipside of fame. Abernethy knew his congregation well. He’d even brought his biography into the act, making much in his editorials of his conversion from alcoholic to Fundamentalist. Dry and High on the Lord, was how he liked to describe himself. This holy sanction allowed him to peddle the muck he edited with a beatific smile, and allowed his readers to wallow in it without guilt. They were reading stories of the wages of sin. What could be more Christian?

For Grillo the joke had long since soured. If he’d thought of telling Abernethy to fuck off once he’d thought of it a hundred times, but where was he going to get a job, hot-shot reporter turned dupe that he was, except with a small operation like the Reporter? He’d contemplated other professions, but he had neither the desire nor aptitude to pursue any other. He had wanted to report the world to itself for as long as he could remember. There was something essential about that function. He could imagine himself performing no other. The world knew itself indifferently well. It needed people to tell it the story of its life, daily, or else how could it learn by its mistakes? He had been making headlines of one such mistake – an act of corruption in the Senate – when he discovered (his gut still turned, recalling that moment) that he had been set up by his target’s opponents, his position as press prosecutor used to besmirch innocent parties. He had apologized, grovelled and resigned. The matter had been forgotten quickly, as a fresh slew of headlines replaced those that he’d created. Politicians, like scorpions and cockroaches, would be there when the warheads had levelled civilization. But journalists were frail. One miscalculation and their credibility was dust. He had fled West until he met the Pacific. He’d considered throwing himself in, but had instead chosen to work for Abernethy. More and more that seemed like an error.

Look on the bright side, he told himself every day, there’s no direction from here but up.

The Grove surprised him. It had all the distinguishing marks of a town created on paper – the central Mall, the cardinal point villages, the sheer order of the streets – but there was a welcome diversity in the styles of the houses, and – perhaps because it was in part built on a hill – a sense that it might have secret reaches.

If the woods had any secrets of their own, they’d been trampled down by the sightseers who’d come to see the exhumation. Grillo flashed his credentials and asked a few questions of one of the cops at the barrier. No, there was no likelihood that the corpse would be raised soon; it had yet to be located. Nor could Grillo speak with any of those in charge of the operation. Come back later, was the suggestion. It looked like good advice. There was very little activity around the fissure. Despite there being tackle of various kinds on the ground nobody seemed to be putting it to use. He decided to risk leaving the scene to make a few calls. He found his way to the Mall and to a public telephone. His first call was to Abernethy, to report that he’d arrived and to enquire whether a photographer had been sent down. Abernethy was away from his desk. Grillo left a message. He had more luck with his second call. The answering machine began playing its familiar message –

‘Hi. This is Tesla and Butch. If you want to speak to the dog, I’m out. If it’s Butch you need –’ only to be interrupted by Tesla.

‘Hello?’

‘It’s Grillo.’

‘Grillo? Shut the fuck up, Butch! Sorry, Grillo, he’s trying to –’ the phone was dropped, and there was a good deal of commotion, followed by Tesla’s breathless return to the receiver. ‘That animal. Why did I take him, Grillo?’

‘He was the only male who’d live with you.’

‘Fuck you.’

‘Your words.’

‘I said that?’

‘You said that.’

‘Out of my mind! I got good news, Grillo. I got a development deal for one of the screenplays. That castaway picture I wrote last year? They want it rewritten. In space.’

‘You’re going to do it?’

‘Why not? I need something produced. Nobody’s going to do any of the heavy-duty stuff ’til I have a hit. So fuck Art, I’m going to be so crass they’ll be coming in their pants. And before you say it, don’t give me any of that artistic integrity shit. A girl’s got to feed herself.’

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