Head Games (The Hector Lassiter Series) by Craig McDonald Read Free Book Online

over Pedro Infante." The Mexican matinee star and his famous moustache had recently gone down in an airplane --- the third crash the actor had suffered in his risk-taking life.
    The goddamn whorehouse set that Orson had whipped up was almost too perfect. It was the sitting room from a border bordello ripped from my horny imagination. Welles, in the Voice, rumbled, "You aren't still playing with that cock piece for Sam Ford, are you?"
    Bud frowned --- probably tripping on "cock." I thought that Bud maybe thought the picture for Ford was something that it was not ... perhaps figured me for scripting skin flicks.
    No . For six months, I'd been sweating various drafts of a film treatment of a pulp novel about cockfighting: Rooster of Heaven . I was doing it for the famous, one-eyed director.
    I shrugged. "As a matter of fact I am. And I'm humping against a deadline for my publisher ... some introductions owed for a couple of other authors. And some other things, too."
    Orson waved a dismissive and meaty hand. "Surely you could stay a couple of nights here, Hector. We'll drain pitchers of sangria and eat good Mexican food and talk frankly and maybe you can help me out a tad. We must do right by Marlene. I know you'll agree with that. She's come out of retirement for this one, just for me. If she knows you're writing for her --- helping me to write for her --- well..."
    That sounded suspiciously like an honest-go-God co-writing credit being hinted at. At that point, I figured Orson must be desperate.
    Then some flunky flounced in without knocking first. He was holding a severed head in his hands.
    I felt my legs go weak; Fiske went white.
    The stranger handed the head to Orson who held it up and turned it, then muttered something that sounded Shakespearean through the sudden buzz in my ears.
    Then I saw --- it was a mock-up of actor Akim Tamiroff's head. In the rough script I'd been sent, the poor bastard with a bad wig had gotten himself strangled. The head was a prop for his death scene, replete with bulging eyes and a lolling tongue. Damned fine workmanship. Orson thought so, too. He rumbled to the special effects man, "Perfect."
    The bastard left, beaming, holding the toy head.
    Recuperating, I smiled and gestured at the bar. "This stuff real, Orson?"
    "You know me too well, Hector. Yes. Always the transcendent verisimilitude --- the result of studious attention to a thousand small and seemingly insignificant details. Always that, yes?"
    "Always. Yes." Fuck .
    I picked up a decanter and tugged out the stopper. I sniffed. "Brandy?"
    Welles smiled. "Perhaps. Probably . My stomach is too sour for Scotch these days."
    I poured three glasses and passed 'em around. "Frankly, I'm not sure Marlene and me are talking anymore."
    The Kraut and me had recently fallen out over a mutual "friend." Hemingway. Orson knew and understood this, I figured. He, too, had had a fight with Hemingway, a real honest-to-God brawl with Marlene, my beloved Kraut, standing as witness.
    Orson chuckled in resonant baritone. "I've heard about your gaffe from Miss Dietrich. You're not showing enough concern over Papa's plane crashes, it seems."
    Bud looked puzzled; Orson caught it. Ever the eager instructor, he explained, "Papa --- you, know Hemingway , lad. Papa went down in back-to-back plane crashes in Africa in, was it '53, or '54?"
    I shrugged, muttered, "Search me. Haven't talked to Hem' since 1937, anyway." I caught myself rubbing my jaw.
    Orson pressed on: "Papa's never really recovered from the crashes. He's in steep decline now. Marlene wants Hector to patch it up with him. They were fast friends down in the Keys. Birds --- of prey --- and of the same feather."
    Enough of this. I took a shot of brandy and slicked back a cowlick. "You had your own falling out with Ernest," I said to Orson. "Did you two ever really patch it up?"
    Scenting a scoop, Fiske pulled out a notebook and pen. He sat down next to Orson. That did it for me --- this could go on a