Chapter One
Donovan was in a nasty mood. His eleven o'clock production meeting had been canceled without notice. Braverman, he thought bitterly. A mental image of the pudgy, smirking associate producer made his stomach curl. Braverman was trying to sandbag him and take over the show. But the putz didn't know who he was dealing with. For he, Donovan Donnelly, the king of daytime TV, was going to cut off Braverman's balls and hang them beside his Emmys.
The visual comforted him as he eased the Jaguar off Rodeo Drive. He started to feel better as he neared the modest mansion he called home. He loved Beverly Hills; the palm trees, the carefully tended lawns, the trappings of wealth and power on display on every manicured lot. He was a lucky man. Top dog in a dog-eat-dog profession.
Donovan checked his reflection in the rearview. Not bad for my age. He stayed in shape, tennis three times a week despite a killer work schedule. Producing a top-rated soap opera like The Sands of Time was tough, demanding work.
Fortunately I'm a tough, demanding sonuvabitch, Donovan gloated, turning his head to admire his ponytail. Armando had done a superb job on his hair. Yes, life was good in good old Hollywood.
As Donovan neared home he was mildly surprised to see a bruised, dirty white panel truck squatting in his driveway like a dead elephant.
Makes the house look third world, Donovan fumed, slipping the Jag into the carport. Still glaring at the truck, he rolled out of the car and marched to the front door.
Before going inside he paused and read the ad attached to his doorknob.
OLLIE'LL FIX IT! the ad declared boldly but neglected to supply specifics. Donovan wondered what was broken.
Entering the house Donovan was greeted by the gurgling fountain in the center of the Italian tile foyer. He had chosen the tiles himself while honeymooning in Sardinia. He had even flown the tile maker to L.A. to supervise their installation.
But when he stepped inside Donovan saw that the aesthetic of the octagonal pattern was now marred by a pile of promotional literature heaped on the floor. He peered at the top layer. OLLIE'LL FIX IT!
What the hell was broken?
"Bonnie!" Donovan called, moving toward the long hall.
It took long seconds before he got a reply.
"Donovan...?"
Bonnie's voice sounded very distant and very surprised.
Probably in the bathroom, he speculated. She spends half the day in there.
Turning the corner Donovan saw the door at the end of the hallway closing. It was the door to the den. His den.
The door to the master bedroom stood open.
"...Bonnie?"
"...Donovan?"
Bonnie's voice was still distant. Donovan scowled and marched to the end of the hall. As he passed the open door he glanced inside. There was no sign of Bonnie but the bed was rumpled.
A queasy sensation began churning inside Donovan's belly. He tried the door at the end of the hall. The one he had just seen close shut.
It was locked. His den was locked.
"Bonnie?"
"Yes..."
Donovan turned. The voice had come from the bedroom. He moved through the open door and saw Bonnie. She was stepping out of the walk-in closet, smoothing her water-stained silk dress. The one she had bought in Paris.
Bonnie's blue eyes widened innocently when she looked up. Her lovely, surgically sculpted features registered a mixture of surprise, mild annoyance and deep concern.
"Donovan -- is everything all right?" Her breathless tone suggested he looked strange. Instinctively he glanced at the mirror.
Aside from the fact that his eyes popped and his jaw hung slack like some well-dressed basset hound, he seemed all right.
"Yeah, fine. The production meeting was put off so I thought I'd -- " He stopped to give her a suspicious stare. "Who's here?"
He asked the question calmly but Bonnie flinched as if he'd slapped her.
"Here?"
Struggling to remain cool Donovan inhaled through his nostrils the way his Yoga instructor had taught him.
"Mnn...what's..." He paused to find the right words. "Whose piece of shit van is that out front?"
She blinked, as if wondering whether she should be offended. "No...uh, nothing. Just a guy selling, uh...pool cleaner."
"Why'd he lock himself in my den?"
It was a damn good question. Bonnie thought so as well. Her expression of deep, sensitive concern began to sag. And with it, too, her beautifully whittled features seemed to crumble. "Well...he...uh..."
She never was very creative, Donavon sighed, waiting patiently.
Bonnie started to say something then slowly exhaled. "Oh God..." She gave Donovan a weak smile. "Remember my friend Ollie?"
He dutifully rummaged through his memory.
"Yeah, yeah...Ollie, right, of course. Ollie Olerud, tall, foolish-looking wanker. Some sort of deadbeat po..." He noticed Bonnie violently jerking her head toward the den.
Donovan gaped at the closed door as if trying to grasp her meaning.
"...Ollie is in there?"
Bonnie's features snapped shut and her familiar expression of weary annoyance returned. "Yes, for Christ's sake, Donovan."
"With the pool cleaner?"
Bonnie glared at him with utter contempt. "Donovan, please. Just Ollie."
The churning in Donovan's belly had swelled to a tsunami but his brain still hadn't caught up. In fact, his brain didn't want to catch up.
"Oh, I see. Well, I'm glad he finally got a job. Always pegged him for a deadbeat."
Donovan gave the closed door an apologetic smile. "Happy to be proved wrong. Selling pool cleaner now, eh? Well..." He turned to Bonnie for affirmation. "...this would be the neighborhood for it."
For a few moments it was quiet. Donovan's smile curled into a thoughtful pout. "Just door-to-door 'running low on chlorine'? That kind of thing?" he asked the den door.
Receiving no answer he turned back to Bonnie. He could taste an acid bile burning the base of his throat. "Quite a coincidence, what? Him stopping by here and you two knowing each other..."
Bonnie looked away. "Donovan, please..."
Before he could respond Donovan heard the den door open with a loud clack.
Both of them stared as a tall, shambling blond man sporting a wispy beard and a sheepish expression emerged cautiously into the hall. He peered into the bedroom and waved.
"Heya, Donovan, how ya doin', man?"
Donovan gave him a distracted smile. "Good, Ollie, and yourself?"
"Can't complain, man."
"Excellent. Let's get to it then, shall we?"
Without waiting for an answer Donovan went to his bureau and opened the bottom drawer. "We'll take a couple of vacuum hoses," he said cheerfully, digging through the carefully stacked sweaters. "And we probably need a new filter 'round now -- or -- wait a minute..."
Donovan paused and beamed at his wife. "Darling, do we have a swimming pool?"
There was a long awkward silence before Ollie finally spoke up.
"Okay, man, let's be reasonable about this," he said, nervously stroking his beard. "Okay, so I had relations with your old lady, so we're all a little embarrassed and, what the fuck, man, I know it's a drag and you know a guy's gotta..."
Ollie glanced at Bonnie and stepped inside the bedroom. "I mean, these things happen."
Donovan slowly stood and held something out to Ollie.
It was a shiny black gun.
Ollie hopped back into the hall. "Hey man, I was just kiddin' about the broa...we didn't actually have sex..." His voice became hurried and confidential, like a fence selling stolen watches. "I was depressed, ya know. I've, uh...I've been impotent, ya know, unable to achieve an erection for about a year and I had to talk to someone about it," he added as if that explained everything. At the same time he kept backing down the hall.
His compulsive beard stroking resembled an obscene form of masturbation. Donovan was both repelled and infuriated that Bonnie would fuck such a loathsome lout.
In my own bloody bed to boot, Donovan fumed. His first bullet would go right to the groin. Serve the pathetic bastard bloody well right.
Ollie's voice had gone up an octave and he was shuffling back down the hall in tiny mincing steps. "I mean, a year without an erection. Think about it, man...unable to achieve an erection..."
Donovan raised the gun and clicked back the hammer.
A loud flash of pain dropped Donovan to his knees. Dazed and disoriented, he tried to focus his blurred vision. Through the painful throbbing in his skull he dimly recognized Bonnie's grimacing face.
She was holding something. Something very familiar. Donovan looked around. Ollie had disappeared.
Still groggy, he pawed the ground for his gun. "Sodding sods," he babbled angrily, "...bloody sodding bleeding bollocks..."
"Leave him alone," Bonnie shouted.
Before he could reply another bolt of agony crashed into his skull and he sprawled to the floor. Bonnie's shrill voice drilled into his shattered brain.
"You should've seen this coming, you insensitive shit!"
Of course, thank you, Donovan thought, why didn't I see it? It's all my bloody fucking fault.
He pushed himself to his feet and stood unsteadily, his eyes fixed on the weapon Bonnie was brandishing. He dimly realized it was a small gold statue. A small human form of indeterminate sex, holding high a sword.
Recognition hit him like ice water. "You vicious bitch!" he croaked, advancing on her. "That's my Daytime Television Lifetime Achievement Award."
Bonnie grabbed the trophy by the base and swung it threateningly.
"You cheesy bastard! Stay back."
Unable to maintain his balance Donovan stumbled closer.
Without hesitation Bonnie brought the trophy down hard, stabbing him in the thigh with the spiked top. Then she ran out the door.
"Owwww, bloody Christ!" Donovan roared after her. "You whore!"
His leg was throbbing and blood was spreading over his linen trousers. Donovan spotted the trophy on the floor and snatched it up.
The sword was stained oily red. The tsunami in his belly suddenly broke free and propelled him hobbling across the room. He rode the energy like a maddened surfer, flinging open the closet door and wildly burrowing through the junk heaped inside.
"All right then..." he rasped, flinging tennis rackets, Rollerblades, golf clubs and hiking shoes aside, "...all right, we'll play it that way..."
Knashee! Knasheee!
Donovan blinked and lifted his head at the sound. The screech came from outside. The driveway. Knashee! Knashee!
It was the horrible wheeze of a rusty engine struggling to turn over.
The poor pathetic sod's truck won't start, Donovan realized. Now I've got the bastard. His short burst of laughter ended in coughing. With renewed purpose he began pulling down shelves and strewing the contents across the floor.
"You want bloody games?" he ranted, chest heaving. "Good then! We'll do bloody games then!"
Reeling drunkenly, he turned from the closet empty-handed.
Knashee! Knasheeee!
The engine's desperate whine was joined by an automobile horn as Donovan limped to another closet and began throwing out tennis balls, gym shorts, sneakers and spiked golf shoes until he finally found it.
"Aha!" he roared. "Bloody evidence, you bitch! Explain this away..."
Clutching his Polaroid camera aloft Donovan limped frantically to the front window. Along the way he dropped the trophy and scooped up his gun.
Knasheee! Knashroooom, rooom!
Ollie's motor finally coughed to life over the car horn's furious blare. Just as Donovan reached the window he heard the metallic wrench of gears and saw the dirty white van lurch backward across his lawn. The van made a hard U, exposing its other side. There, stenciled in large black letters, was the pledge that OLLIE'LL FIX IT.
"Explain this away!" Donovan shouted. He lifted the Polaroid to his eye and snapped. The bright flash sheeted the glass window blinding him.
It also ruined the picture.
"Blast! Blast you!" Donovan cursed through clenched teeth.
He was really riding the tsunami now, hanging ten on a monster wave that was burning like lava. Foaming red flames boiled up around him as he lifted his gun and fired.
The first shot shattered the front window but Donovan was pleased to see a geyser of dirt kick up only a few feet from the van's front tire.
The horn continued blaring as Donovan fired again and again at the wildly skidding van. Suddenly the van was gone and the horn stopped.
A second later a screeching Jaguar peeled out of the now cleared drive. His Jaguar.
"Sodding bitch!" Donovan screamed, vainly pulling the trigger on his empty gun.
Dizziness washed over him and he hopped to the couch. "My Jag," he crooned sadly, tossing the gun aside. He grabbed a decanter of bourbon and sat down heavily, his wounded leg sticking out in front of him.
He took a swig of bourbon and went to work.
Chuckling to himself Donovan took snap after snap of his gashed leg, the photos whirring out of the front of the camera and spewing into his lap.
"Explain this away, you painted harlot!" he muttered with a smug grin. Chortling drunkenly he found another film pack and took a series of shots that featured his blood-stained achievement award. The photos whirred and spewed, whirred and spewed with antic speed.
Still chortling he passed out, the Polaroids scattered over him like holiday decorations on a battered tree.
Copyright © 2003 by Universal Studios Publishing Rights, a division of Universal Studios Licensing LLLP. Intolerable Cruelty is a trademark and copyright of Universal Studios. All rights reserved.
