Borderline (The Arcadia Project, #1)(63)

Berenbaum respected my need to bask; he waited until we got onto the scenic portion of the Pacific Coast Highway to start talking business.

“I don’t want you to worry about Johnny,” he said. “If -anything serious had happened to him, I would know. I still believe everything is going to be okay, and I need you to believe that with me, all right?”

“I do, I do, I do believe in fairies,” I said. If he’d asked me to set his car on fire by a police station, I’d have said yes.

To our left, blue ocean shredded itself on golden rocks, and to our right the same rocks rose up to make a high wall, -broken up with desert scrub and the occasional improbable patch of wildflowers. The highway writhed like a snake scaled with too many cars, hiding another gorgeous view around the next curve.

“Mr. Berenbaum!” called a young male voice a couple of lanes over and behind us. I turned and saw another convertible with a young guy leaning over the passenger’s side.

At the look on the guy’s face, I felt something dark and petty twist in my gut. I’d dreamed of being looked at that way, once. I’d imagined having fans, going to glitzy parties, winning Oscars. It hurt, remembering optimism that now looked like idiocy.

My self-pity didn’t last long; David Berenbaum’s presence was like a fire hose of sunshine.

“Read my script!” the guy shouted at him.

“I will if you can get it into my car,” David called back over his shoulder.

The guy seemed to be doing some calculations and seriously thinking about throwing the thing. I felt bad for him; he had clearly never passed a physics class. But this was a Hollywood Moment. This could change his life. I didn’t want to watch him make an ass of himself, but I also couldn’t look away.

The screenwriter leaned over in an urgent conference with the driver, and I saw the turn signal go on.

“He’s changing lanes,” I said, now alarmed. “He’s coming over here.”

“Good for him!” Berenbaum said.

So much for my idyllic little date with David. “What if he has a gun or something?” I said.

“I hope you’re not saying that because the driver is black.”

“He is?” He was. I hadn’t noticed. Or had I? Goddamn it. “It’s not the driver I’m worried about,” I said. “He has both hands on the wheel.”

“Use your eyes, Millie,” said David. “Be a director. What story are the visuals telling?”

I tried to relax, even as the other car tailgated the one next to us, trying to close the space. “It’s a BMW. The writer’s younger than the driver, maybe early twenties. Driver and passenger are both wearing designer stuff, but understated. I’m guessing old money.”

“Rich kids are brought up with the idea that violence is beneath them,” Berenbaum observed.

“Well, it is,” I said as the BMW flashed its lights, honked, and otherwise made itself a nuisance to the car ahead of it.

“Grew up rich, eh?” He laughed. “It’s easier to dehumanize someone than to try to understand the context of a violent act.”

“Johnny’s blood is splattered all over Union Station,” I said recklessly. “Does the context of that violence matter to you?”

“Of course it does,” he said without hesitation, making me wonder if he’d heard the extent of the carnage already. “Johnny may look like a pampered pretty boy, but he’s also a savage motherf*cker when he’s cornered. I’m guessing he threw the first punch.”

I had no time to consider this, because the guys in the BMW had finally caught up to us. I could see more telling details now: the Urth Caffé travel tumbler, the smugness, the slightly bored expression on the driver’s face as he forced a panicked woman into the other lane. The dude in the passenger’s seat looked excited, but the way you do when your home team is about to score. This was a kid who had never been denied anything.

He pulled up alongside and held the script out to Berenbaum, a stack of pages fluttering in the wind, sun glinting off the two brads holding it together. He knew proper industry format at least.

“Hold the wheel a second, will you?” said Berenbaum. Before I could tell him he was out of his mind, he let go and took the script.

“What is the matter with you?” I said, laughing from hysteria as I leaned against him to hold the wheel steady. Berenbaum barely slowed the car as he skimmed the first page, a page in the middle, and the last page.

He turned, then, and held the script back out to the kid in the BMW. “Sorry!” he said over the road noise. “Not for me!”

Either Berenbaum let go too soon or the kid’s grip was as bad as his writing; the script fluttered free and bumped against the side of the BMW on the way to the pavement. Three cars had already run over it by the time I turned back around to stare incredulously at Berenbaum.

“Why did you do that?” I said when there was enough space between us and the now-crestfallen rich kid. “You knew the odds were strongly in favor of that script being a piece of shit.”

“But what if it wasn’t?” he said, giving me a big grin, his white hair dancing madly. “What a story that would have made.”

That silenced me, and I just sat staring at this icon of a man, realizing how very far I was from understanding him. “Are we going anywhere in particular?” I said.