He led them to the cordon the police were setting up around the site. Daniel had to show three different cops ID before they were let through.

When they reached the ambulance crew, the paramedics were lifting the man on a board onto a stretcher. His helmet was dented and scuffed, and there was a restraint around his neck. The man wasn’t moving, no, wait, his left leg twitched. They’d cut off some of his clothes, pulled a sheet to his waist. They saw blood.

Daniel spoke briefly to one of them and looked down into the man’s face under the helmet’s opaque visor, which the paramedics had lifted.

“Mary Lisa, come up here.”

Daniel pulled her beside him so she could see the man’s face. He said nothing, waited.

Even though the man’s face was covered with blood, she knew who he was. She was surprised even though she supposed she shouldn’t be.

She said, “It’s Paulie Thomas. He’s Tom O’Hurley’s nephew. Tom’s one of the directors for Born to Be Wild. But you already know that, Detective Vasquez. Paulie was here at the studio today, I saw him. Is he going to be all right?” This to one of the paramedics.

“I don’t know. Sorry. Okay, we’re out of here now. Step back, please.”

Daniel pulled her away. They watched in silence as the ambulance wove its way through the crowds of people and cars and, siren on, began to pick up speed.

Daniel took both her hands in his. “Listen to me now, Mary Lisa. It’s over.” He saw Lou Lou muscling her way through to them. “There’s my tough girl. Okay, I want the two of you to go home now. There’s nothing more you can do here. You drive, okay, Lou Lou?”

“I can drive, Detective Vasquez,” Mary Lisa said, her voice surprisingly firm. “I’m dandy now.”

He nodded slowly. “All right. I’ll call you when I know more about this.”

FIFTY

The head writer makes all decisions. Script writers are called dialoguers.

Mary Lisa’s house didn’t stay empty for very long. Within the hour, there was a cacophony of voices pouring out the open front door and the open windows. A half dozen people had gathered out on her deck, patting her, handing her sodas, beers, a straight shot of vodka.

“It’s over,” Mary Lisa heard them say over and over, “thank God it’s finally over and you’re okay.”

Mary Lisa stood in the middle of all the well-wishers, wondering why she didn’t feel much of anything at all. What about relief? Surely she should be feeling immense relief, but she wasn’t. There was nothing, simply nothing.

She knew if she fell to her knees and thanked God for getting her through this, she wouldn’t mean it, she wouldn’t mean anything. She sat on one of her deck chairs, a soda in one hand and a beer in the other, staring at the kitchen glass that held straight vodka beside her elbow on a side table and wondering who would drink this deadly stuff. She hadn’t known there was any in the house.

Paulie Thomas. She said his name a couple of times in her mind. He’d been the one to hit her with the car, the one to shoot at her on the beach, the one who’d called her. He was Jamie Ramos? He’d kidnapped Puker?

Her questions fell into a black hole. She got up and wandered into her kitchen. She saw Buzz Snyder laying out a half-dozen pizzas on her kitchen counter. For the first time, she smiled. Snyder was as skinny as the mirror above Mary Lisa’s bathroom sink, though he personally made about two hundred pizzas a day at Reality Pizza, a place he owned on PCH in Malibu. How could he not pop a dozen or two slices into his mouth every single day?

A dog barked, a little-dog bark even though it was loud. It was Honey Boy, only five pounds on a rainy day, which meant that MacKenzie Corman, his doting mama, wannabe actress, and Mary Lisa’s newest friend, had arrived as well.

Mary Lisa heard Breaker Barney’s scratchy laugh. He called himself the local “gangsta” because he made his living running gambling sites-some on the Internet and at least half a dozen for private clients in posh card rooms. He lived ten doors down in the Colony, and try as he might to slick his hair back and look tough and sexy, he looked like a preacher. She’d met him at Monte’s the first month she’d been in L.A., and had a standing Thursday morning date for espresso. His grin was so big she saw the gold filling in one of his molars.

Mary Lisa looked out over the back deck, her kitchen and living room filled with people, and in that moment, she did feel something-immense gratitude for all of her friends. She didn’t think; she threw back her head and drank down the straight vodka.

When everyone had a slice of pizza and had congregated on the back deck, she joined them, smiling widely now because someone, she didn’t know who, had poured another half glass of vodka for her, and she’d drunk it right down. She called out, “Hey, dudes, I’m heading over to the dojo tomorrow, working on my black belt. Any of you losers want to come with me and try to take me on?”

There was laughter, some hoots, some voices yelling out.

“Must be more like a pretty pink belt.”

“You can’t stand peace and quiet, is that it?”

“You couldn’t take on Honey Boy.”

Woof, woof, yip, yip.

“Come to Mama, Honey Boy, I don’t want Mary Lisa to try to beat you up.”

Of all things, that second vodka brought her right back, planted her feet firmly on her wooden deck. She heard seagulls overhead, saw a pelican wing its way ponderously down the beach, right at the edge of the foaming waves.

She listened to Carlo tell about a surfing lesson with Millie Cartwright, a young actress just breaking in, and how she’d fallen right on her head on the board and still came up smiling. She didn’t hear her cell phone over the din of voices, but she felt it vibrate in her jeans pocket.

It was Tom O’Hurley.

The first words out of his mouth were, “Paulie lost control of his bike, he wouldn’t do anything like this on purpose. He’s shy, Mary Lisa, you know that, but the thing is he’s always gotten these ideas into his head, but-” He paused, got ahold of himself, and sucked in a deep breath.

“Tom, I-”

“No, no, I’m sorry. You’ve been under a great deal of stress, everyone knows it. I’m very sorry for all of it. But Paulie-no, Mary Lisa, he really liked you, he wanted to ask you out, he told me that once, but I discouraged him.”

Mary Lisa wasn’t deaf. She heard the pain and fear in his voice. She wanted to tell him Paulie badly needed professional help, that he’d obviously lost it today, but she didn’t. She said, “Tom, listen to me now. It wasn’t me Paulie was interested in, it was Margie. He didn’t like me, Tom, truly-”

“Yes, he did like you but that doesn’t matter now. Listen, Mary Lisa, I’m so sorry about all this-this accident. It’s such a relief you weren’t hurt, even though Paulie was. And you know it was an accident, it had to be.”

What to say now? Tom wasn’t thinking logically and who could blame him? “Perhaps it was an accident, Tom. How is he doing?”

“They said he’s had a lot of bleeding into and around his brain. They’ve taken him to the operating room.” There was a hitch in his voice. “His mother is frantic. The doctors are closemouthed, but I could tell they think he could die. Everyone keeps repeating we have to be patient.”

“I’m very sorry, Tom.”

Silence a moment, then, “I heard there was some talk that he didn’t climb the curb on his bike accidentally, that he was trying to hit you, that it was Jeff Renfrew who shoved you away and kicked his bike.”

“Yes, Paulie did jump the curb, Tom. I’m sorry, but he did it on purpose, he wanted to run me down. A half dozen people saw the whole thing. I know this is difficult, but it’s what happened. When Paulie gets out of the hospital, he’ll need professional help, Tom, lots of it.” She prayed he was hearing her, not only hearing, but taking it in, understanding and accepting it.