Wonders Never Cease: A Novel

WONDERS NEVER CEASE

OTHER BOOKS BY TIM DOWNS

Ends of the Earth

Less Than Dead

First the Dead

Head Game

PlagueMaker

Chop Shop

Shoofly Pie

WONDERS

NEVER CEASE

TIM DOWNS

© 2010 by Tim Downs

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Thomas Nelson, Inc., books may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].

Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-1-59554-309-7

eISBN : 9781418552053

Printed in the United States of America

10 11 12 13 RRD 5 4 3 2 1

For my beautiful Joy

My reason to get out of bed every morning and my

reason to return every night

And for Cyndee Pelton and Madeleine Gaba-Nebres at

Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital

Our very own angels in disguise

Man is neither angel nor beast, and it is unfortunately the case that anyone trying to act the angel acts the beast.

—BLAISE PASCAL, Pensées

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

PROLOGUE

I was six years old when I saw my first angel, and nobody was too thrilled about it. Not my mom, that’s for sure—she almost freaked. But she had a lot going on in her life right about then, so it’s hard to blame her. Now, Kemp—he thought I’d gone postal, but then he never thought much of me anyway. Maybe that’s always the way it is with somebody else’s kids. Kemp only wanted my mom, after all. That’s all he signed up for; I just came with the deal. But a kid who sees angels—that was more than he bargained for. Maybe I shouldn’t blame him either—but I do.

I was attending an Episcopal school in Los Angeles when it happened. Funny thing is, they freaked too. Now, this is an angel we’re talking about—I thought I might get extra credit. But no, they found it just as hard to believe as everybody else. Hard to figure, isn’t it? At least I thought so.

That’s right, California. Believe me, that doesn’t help when you’re telling a story like this. Los Angeles—isn’t that supposed to be the city of angels? Not anymore, I guess. Maybe I should tell people it happened in New York or Boston—someplace where people are too smart for things like this to happen. Sorry—these were California angels, and I’m just telling you the way it was.

Now you don’t know me and I don’t know you, but I know what you’re probably thinking right now—’cause I’ve told this story a dozen times, and every time it goes pretty much the same way. The minute I say the word angel, you get a funny look on your face. You wonder if you heard me right; you stop smiling; you start to blink. You cock your head to one side and take a closer look at me, like maybe there’s a couple of screws backing out of my forehead and my frontal lobe is about to eject.

It’s true what they say, you know: If you talk to God, you’re religious; but if you hear from God, you’re schizophrenic.

No need to apologize. I’ve seen that look before and I’m used to it.

It took me about a year to collect all the pieces of this story. A lot of it I saw myself, but parts of it I didn’t know about ’til later. I don’t have any way to convince you, and frankly I don’t care if you believe me or not. All I can do is tell you what happened, and then you have to decide. I don’t know, maybe you can’t believe unless you see it for yourself. But I know what I saw—and I believe it.

This is how it happened.

1

Beverly Hills, California

So, tell me. What did you think of the script?"

I loved it. I devoured it. It was genius.

She was lying. In twenty years of acting, Olivia Hayden had never read an entire screenplay from cover to cover. Liv didn’t like to read—it bored her. Whenever the studios sent over a script she simply passed it on to her agent, Morty Biederman.

She always let Morty digest the thing and evaluate her part, then run off the pages containing her dialogue and send them back to her, reducing the 120-page screenplay to a manageable few sheets of Courier 12-point text. Liv always told the tabloids that she didn’t like to read because she was dyslexic, because that’s what Tom Cruise had told them and it seemed to work for him—and Liv could stand a little more sympathy from the rags these days.

The young director let out a sigh of relief. I was afraid you might not like it.

It’s brilliant, she said with just the right touch of breathless awe.

When the director glanced down at his feet in modesty Liv used the opportunity to quickly look him over. I wonder if this kid has a driver’s license? she thought, shaking her head ever so slightly. The guy couldn’t have been more than twenty-five—he probably had his UCLA Film School diploma still rolled up in his back pocket. But hey, the kid had a script and he had a studio backing him, and a part is a part. Is that a pimple? Man, I’m old enough to be his . . . older sister.

You know, I cowrote this script, the director said.

Astonishing. A multidimensional talent.

Liar. Who did he think he was fooling? Morty had already filled her in. The kid had just stumbled onto a decent story concept, then hired himself a second-string writer to hammer out a treatment and first draft. He probably bought the script outright and then pasted his own name on the cover to negotiate a better deal as a writer-director hyphenate, inflating his salary and granting him casting privileges. That’s the only reason Liv was sitting there: If this kid wasn’t casting the film she wouldn’t even be talking to him. She rarely spoke to a director before a deal was signed, and writers—well, everybody in Hollywood knows that writers are basically pond scum.

I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to find out you were available, he said.

You were lucky, Liv said. I happen to be between films right now.

Way between. Ten years ago she wouldn’t have taken a second glance at a half-baked script like this, but it was a lead role, after all, and good parts were getting hard to find.

What’s the title again? she asked.

"Lips of Fury."

She winced. Catchy.

I think some of the dialogue still needs a little tweaking, he said.

Don’t you dare change a thing. It’s perfect the way it is. Why bother? She never argued about a script before she was on the set anyway. Once production started the clock would be ticking and money would be flowing like water—then she would have leverage and she could rip the script to shreds.

They sat together at the bar at Kate Mantilini’s on Wilshire Boulevard, perched on round gray barstools with tall rigid backs that were designed for appearance only—like everything else in this town, she thought. It was almost morning, though Kate’s typically closed by midnight. That’s the way Liv planned it; the director had requested the meeting, but Liv had insisted on choosing the time and place. The ridiculous hour wasn’t chosen simply to ensure privacy, though Kate’s had its share of celebrity patrons and annoying fans; the hour was intended to remind this kid who she was: She was Olivia Hayden, and Kate Mantilini’s or any other eating establishment in Hollywood would stay open just as long as she wanted it to. Liv Hayden was used to getting she wanted, and the sooner this kid learned that lesson, the easier it would be when it came to negotiations. Not negotiations over money—Morty always handled that. The negotiations she was interested in were the ones that took place on the set: when she wanted to shoot a scene without rehearsals, or when the director was demanding a third take when she preferred to head back to her trailer for a nap. She wanted things the way she wanted them, and she didn’t want to have to flirt and pout to get her way each time. She had paid those dues by the time she was thirty; Liv was fast approaching forty-five now, and she didn’t have the patience or the energy to play those games anymore.

The director grinned at her. I’m really looking forward to working with you on this film, Ms. Hayden. I welcome your input—your opinion means a lot to me. I mean, an actor of your—stature.

Stature. The word stung, but Liv kept a smile plastered on her face. Stature—durability—longevity—they were all just euphemisms for the same brutal reality: age. It was no picnic being a forty-plus box office icon in Hollywood, especially for a woman. Oh, sure, male actors complained about the ravages of time too, but it was different for men. Less than a week ago she was lunching with Nic Cage at The Ivy when he started whining about hairlines and face-lifts and she shoved his corn chowder into his lap. She reminded him that Brando was the size of a Macy’s balloon when they paid him $3.7 million to do Superman—but let an actress pack on an extra twenty and the only role she’ll get is doing commercials for Jenny Craig. It’s not the same, she told him. Women in Hollywood have to do everything men do, but we’re supposed to do it crammed into a size four.

And in Hollywood the cameras were everywhere, circling like buzzards, searching the landscape for sagging appendages or a heretofore unreported nip or tuck. The buzzards could smell death—career death—and the instant they detected the onset of death the cameras all went click, click, click. The digital cameras didn’t even make a sound—you never knew where they were or when they were clicking away. And just when you thought they had finally left you alone, you would find yourself on the cover of a tabloid looking worse than you ever imagined possible, bulging out of some horrid swimsuit you should have had the sense to drop off at Goodwill ten years ago.

Buzzards, that’s what they were. No—the cameras were worse than buzzards, because a buzzard can only eat you once, but a bad photograph can eat away at you forever.

Why don’t we talk about the part? the director suggested.

Yes, let’s do. It’s about time.

She needed this part, because the only antidote for a bad photograph is a good one. The public doesn’t have a short memory; it has amnesia. The minute they walk out of that theater they forget your face, and the last image they see of you is the one they remember. This was a smaller film, a film she wouldn’t have touched when she was at the top of her game—but that was then and this is now. At least it was a feature film with a respectable budget and decent distribution, not just some pathetic sub-fifteen-million-dollar trailer that would end up buried on the Lifetime Channel. And the role was a good one—the kind that was getting harder to find. Danielle Blakelock, sleek and seductive twenty-five-year-old microbiologist martial arts expert.

Twenty-five. Ouch.

But she could do it—she could still pull it off. After all, it was the same role she had been playing for twenty years. Different name, different location, same role. Twenty-five—it wasn’t such a stretch. If shooting didn’t start until summer she still had time to squeeze in three weeks of green tea diets and detox wraps at Las Ventanas. That would do it. That would put her back in top form—except maybe for the close-ups . . .

Will we be using a body double? she asked.

The director frowned. Why would we need to do that?

She gave him a wink. I knew I liked you the minute I saw you. She casually laid her hand on her right thigh and hiked up her skirt a little to show just a bit more leg—then spotted a telltale lacework of faint blue lines and slid it back down again.

I see this character as essentially tortured, the director said. I think her driving motivation is to relieve her own guilt by redeeming the soul of someone she loves.

I couldn’t agree more. Whatever.

The opening scene finds her in an alcoholic stupor in the middle of a vacant lot. She opens her eyes and looks around . . . Where is she? How did she get there? How long has she—

Wait a minute. She’s an alcoholic?

The director paused. How could you miss that? It’s central to her entire character.

Liv made a mental note to strangle Morty. How long has she been an alcoholic?

Twenty, maybe twenty-five years.

What was she doing, sipping margaritas in her bassinet?

Huh?

The woman’s only twenty-five years old.

What are you talking about? She’s closer to fifty.

Liv’s left shoe slipped off the footrest and clacked on the tile floor.

Did she come across younger in the script? I suppose we could knock off a couple of years, but she has to be at least in her mid-forties if she’s got a twenty-five-year-old daughter.

Daughter?

Danielle.

I thought we were talking about Danielle.

No, we’re talking about your character—Margaret Blakelock, Danielle’s alcoholic mother.

A very long pause followed, during which Liv’s eyelids slowly lowered until her eyes were only burning slits.

"Margaret Blakelock," she said.

That’s right.

Not Danielle.

No, Margaret. Didn’t your agent tell you—

And may I ask who will be playing Danielle?

I haven’t cast that part yet. I’m thinking about one of the Olsen twins.

Another long pause.

Without breaking eye contact, Liv reached to her left and picked up a bowl of mixed nuts from the bar. She held the bowl in front of her and slowly sorted through them with her index finger, settling on a filbert of unusual size. She brought the nut to eye level and held it like a dart; she took careful aim, then tossed it at the young director. It bounced off the center of his forehead—plink.

The director sat speechless.

Liv reached for another nut—a cashew this time.

Let me get this straight, she said. You want to cast me as the alcoholic mother of an Olsen twin—an actress who would make me look like John Madden in a housedress just by standing beside me.

She tossed the nut—plink.

I thought you—I thought I made it clear that—

"Let me make something clear: I am Olivia Hayden. I have made twenty-seven feature films, and most of them turned a profit."

Plink.

I was starring in films when you were still in training pants. My face is known all over the world, and my name is practically a household word.

Plink.

"I have played a sleek and seductive police officer, a sleek and seductive shuttle astronaut, and a sleek and seductive advertising executive. I can even play a sleek and seductive microbiologist martial arts expert, because I’m a professional and I have that kind of range. But I do not—"

Plink.

"I do not—"

Plink.

"I do not play the bloated fifty-year-old mother of an Olsen twin."

She dumped the remainder of the bowl in his lap, slid off her barstool, and headed for the door without another word.

Liv stood seething in the parking lot while the valet brought her car around. The young man opened the door for her and held it, smiling. She stepped up to the car and then stopped and turned to the valet. Do you know who I am? she asked.

The valet’s smile vanished. Uh—BMW M6 ragtop—that’s what your claim check says, anyway. Is there some problem with—

Get away from my car, moron. She jerked the door out of his hand and ducked inside.

She jammed the pedal to the floor and hit Wilshire Boulevard with the tires already smoking. It was after four o’clock and the streets were all but vacant; she raced down Wilshire without regard for speed limits or stoplights, half hoping that a cop would pull her over just so she could pull a Zsa Zsa and slap the fool broadside. She was dying to slap somebody—she needed it bad. She glanced around at the empty streets. There’s never a cop around when you need one.

She reached the 405 a few minutes later and headed south with no particular destination in mind. She just wanted to drive, and anywhere would do.

Margaret Blakelock, she thought. Not Danielle—of course not! No, we need someone younger to play that role, someone without distracting body features—like skin! An Olsen twin—I weigh more than both of them combined! I’d have to face sideways the whole picture!

She passed a minivan like it was standing still and crossed all eight lanes just to feel the car swerve.

The alcoholic mother, she thought. How glamorous! I can see it now: As the scene opens I’m lying drunk in some vacant lot. I lift my bloated head and drool runs down my chin . . . Cut! Print it! Boy, I hope they pick a nice shooting location—a vacant lot in Jamaica maybe. Morty—he knew about this. I’m gonna kill that guy. You keep an agent for twenty years, and this is what he does to you? He didn’t send me the wrong pages—he did it on purpose! He’s trying to tell me that I’m getting old—that I’m going to have to start taking different parts. Well, thanks for the press release, Morty, but I already knew that.

She shot under an overpass at ninety miles per hour. The wind swirling behind her BMW blasted the concrete abutment with bits of sand and gravel.

Goldie Hawn was right, there are only three ages for women in Hollywood: Babe, District Attorney, and Driving Miss Daisy.What happened to me? Yesterday I was sleek and seductive—suddenly I’m the alcoholic mother of sleek and seductive.Tomorrow I’ll probably be checking myself into Betty Ford.

She glanced in the rearview mirror and to her astonishment found a vehicle trailing behind her barely a car length off her bumper. Moron! she shouted at the mirror. Eight empty lanes and this idiot still wants to tailgate! Welcome to Los Angeles.

For a split second she considered slamming on her brakes and sending him slamming into her tail end, but she knew that at ninety miles per hour his engine would end up in her lap. She tapped on her brakes instead; the car behind her slowed down a little but still remained a single car length behind.

She hit the gas and accelerated—the car behind her kept pace. She changed lanes twice—so did her pursuer. Who is this idiot? she wondered, and suddenly she knew.

Buzzards!

The paparazzi—they must have been waiting for her outside Kate Mantilini’s. Don’t those people ever have enough pictures? Doesn’t an editor ever have the decency to say, Enough! We’ve got photos of this chick coming out the wazoo—give her some privacy. Couldn’t some sympathetic editor at least remind them, Look—nobody wants to see this woman walking out of a Walgreens with a bottle of Metamucil. And no more shots of her stuffing her face with french fries either—nobody wants to see that. But no, the buzzards were never satisfied.

She glared into the mirror. Where did this guy think she was going at four o’clock in the morning? What was the big attraction? The way he was driving you’d think he was following her to the Golden Globes!

She lowered her window and screamed into the wind, Get off my tail, you moron! I’m just an alcoholic mother—you have me confused with someone else!

But the car stayed right behind her.

And that’s when Olivia Hayden got mad.

She was sick to death of feeding these buzzards, and she made up her mind right then and there that this guy was one bird that wasn’t going to eat tonight. She would outdrive him if it took her all night; she would take the 405 all the way to Irvine, then jump onto the San Diego Freeway and take it all the way to Tijuana if she had to.

An Olsen twin, she kept repeating to herself, and her hands gripped the steering wheel until her knuckles turned white.

Ramon Munoz reached out the window and smacked the 24-Hour Pizza light that was magnetically attached to the roof of his car. The light flickered once and went out again, and he decided to leave it that way. Hey, it was only for advertising—what did he care? It’s not like he was driving a cop car—nobody was yelling, Pull over! Let the pizza guy through!

He glanced over at the street address taped to the top of the pizza warmer—some place in Inglewood. He hoped he didn’t get lost again. The drivers were no longer obligated to make their deliveries in thirty minutes or less—too many accidents—but a slow delivery meant a cold pizza, and a cold pizza meant a bad tip. Why don’t they give us GPS units? The owner—he’s the man, he’s got the money. A nice Garmin or something—that would speed things up. Still, Ramon